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A Candid Critic 

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MAUDE RITTENHOUSE MAYNE 

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Illustrated hy Chapin 



PHILADELPHIA 

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 
1420 Chestnut Street 


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Copyright 1897 by the 

American Baptist Publication Society 



jTrom tbc Society's own fJress 


XovitiQl^ DcJ)icateD 

TO THE DEAREST OF FRIENDS. THE 
CHEERIEST OF COMRADES, THE 
WISEST OF COUNSELORS, MY 
BRAFE, SWEET, HELPFUL 

fniotber 



CONTENTS 


ri . A Candid Critic, 7 

’^I. Alice Gannett’ s Vacation, 15 

VIII. How Jessica Learned, 28 

i / iv . Beside All Waters, 37 

A Little Dressmaker, 46 

VI. Barbara’s Stratagem, 56 

VI 1 . How Edith Grew Contented, .... 66 

VIII. Eugenia’s Sacrifice, 75 

IX. The Giver Blessed, 81 

X. Ruth’s Lesson, 88 

XL How Miss Elizabeth Found Happiness, , 100 

XH. Julia’s Home Mission, no 

XIII. What Kitty Found, 118 

XIV. Pink and Gray, 127 

XV. “Doers of the Word,” . . . . '. .139 


5 


6 


CONTENTS 


XVI. To Serve or to be Served, 149 

XVII. A Happy Change, 158 

XVIII. In Due Season, 167 

XIX. A Heart Lesson, 180 

XX. How Franc Took Notes 189 

XXL Her Home-coming, 207 

XXII. A Sunshine Maker, 220 

XXI 1 1 . Edith’s Better Way, 231 


I 


A CANDID CRITIC 


not one of the sort to talk behind the 
P back,” remarked Sibyl Carey with an 
IJ, air of self-righteousness, “ and I’m never 
^ afraid to tell the truth.” 

“ Pity you aren’t now and then,” replied Rob 
Snell with a laugh, “ for the truth isn’t always 
a very kind or palatable dose to force down 
people’s throats. I fancy Ethel thought it a 
rather bitter pill to swallow just now.” 

“ She will cry her eyes out,” murmured Matie, 
remembering Ethel’s flushed face as she had left 
the room. 

“ I don’t care ; it will do her good. She hasn’t 
enough backbone to class her among vertebrates, 
and she needed to know it.” 

“ But you might have told her more gently. 
She is very sensitive.” 

Sibyl sniffed disdainfully. “ Truth is truth. 
It will not hurt her. I feel perfectly friendly 
toward Ethel and my criticism is honest.” 


7 


8 


A CANDID CRITIC 


“Let me see,” said Rob with a twinkle, 
“aren’t you the honest party who told Laura 
Larcom she never ought to try to sing again in 
public ? ” 

“Yes,” answered Sibyl, “and a good thing it 
was too. She is sure to fail every time — silly, 

frightened 
thing!” 

“A good 
way to reas- 
sure her and 
give her self- 
confidence,” 
exclaimed 
Rob. “Well, 
come again. 
Miss Honest 
Candor. I 
suppose we all 
need dressing 
down occasionally — those of us who are only 
human.” And Rob bowed low as he held the 
door for Sibyl to pass out. 

“ For my part,” said Matie with some warmth, 
as the door closed, “ I think Sibyl decidedly too 
critical. She never loses a chance to say a disa- 
greeable thing and then to refer to her own 
exemplary frankness.” 



A CANDID CRITIC 9 

“You are talking behind her back,” said Mary 
Washburn smiling. 

“ One of us ought to follow her example and 
tell her what a prickle she is getting to be ; she is 
so fond of the truth ! ” 

“ I just wish you would do it,” exclaimed 
Rob. “ I’d like to help. I have never forgotten 
how she hurt Jessie St. John by telling her she 
was no lady because she laughed aloud in a 
street car once. You know what a jolly, bright 
little thing Jessie is, and a thorough little lady 
too. It cut her to the heart.” 

“ Sibyl certainly needs a lesson,” assented 
Made. “ Now, girls, put up your work and 
we’ll have our chocolate. Stay, Rob ; a boy is 
a novelty in our sewing club.” 

“ Indeed I will ; I’m so interested in Sibyl’s 
case. Don’t drop the thing. She ought to be 
pricked with one of her own thorns and I will 
help.” 

“ I am not thirsting for gore,” said gay little 
Rose Sawyer, “even if she did discover and 
publicly announce that my best gown was made 
over out of grandma’s ; but I do believe it would 
be a good thing, Rob, to let Miss Sibyl see her- 
self as others see her just for once. She is worse 
than a whole swarm of gnats turned loose upon 
the community. Nobody escapes her stinging.” 


lO 


A CANDID CRITIC 


“ She would be lovely but for that,” said Sue 
Lawrence gravely. “ She is so capable and ener- 
getic ” 

“Will you be a martyr for your country’s 
good and help reform her too?” 

“ If you’ll not keep it up too long,” answered 
Sue. 

By the time the girls had sipped their choco- 
late, eaten the crisp wafers, and folded up their 
work, the plan was complete. 

“Remember,” called Rob, departing, “the 
sewing club is now the Club of Candid Critics. 
Don’t be slow getting in your work.” 

And they were not. 

Matie met Sibyl the next day on the walk 
and stopped for a moment’s chat. “ Why, Sibyl, 
you poor thing ! ” she exclaimed presently, her 
heart quaking a little. “ How dreadfully freckled 
you are this spring. You really ought to be 
more careful of your skin ; you’re getting to 
look like a fright.” Then, as she hurried off, 
“ Do try lemon juice and a veil.” 

Sibyl stood staring in angry amazement. 

“Don’t you know it’s unladylike to stand 
chatting on a street corner? ” said a voice in her 
ear. And she turned to see Rob Snell stepping 
toward her. “ I’ll walk on with you a bit,” he 
continued loftily. “ To tell the truth, I’ve been 


A CANDID CRITIC 


II 


wanting to speak to you, Sibyl. This isn’t the 
first remissness I have noticed in your conduct 
of late. I was really ashamed of you the day of 
the Knights’ Parade. The way you jostled and 
pushed through the crowd with no regard for 
other people’s rights ! And the boisterous way 
in which yon clapped the soprano at the Schu- 
mann Concert was downright rude. When I 
heard you correcting Ethel yesterday, I realized 
that I too had Christian duties as a critic. 
Good-bye. I turn here.” 

“ Of all the impudence ! ” exclaimed Sibyl, 
her eyes flashing. “ Christian duties, indeed ! 
I always did hate Rob Snell. What a prig he 
is ! ” And Sibyl went home in no mild temper. 

She had hardly recovered her usual self-com- 
placency when she went next day to a class 
recital at her music teacher’s. She was sitting 
in a sunny window when Mary Washburn ex- 
claimed suddenly : “ Gracious ! but your hair is 
fiery red, Sibyl, isn’t it ? It fairly flames in that 
sunshine ! ” 

Sibyl’s face flamed also. “You are rather 
blunt,” she said. 

“ Oh, only candid,” replied Mary. 

“And speaking candidly,” interrupted Sue 
Lawrence, “ I wish you would just tell me 
frankly why on earth you ever tried to write 


12 


A CANDID CRITIC 


that poem for the alumni banquet. You are no 
poet, Sibyl, and that fact was painfully appar- 
ent. I have been feeling that some courageous 
and outspoken friend of yours ought to tell you 
never to try such a thing again, and I am glad I 
am not afraid to tell you the truth about it.” 

Then Madame Fisher announced the first 
number on the programme, and Sibyl could not 
have replied even had she found words. She 
was so choked with indignation she could 
hardly sing when called upon, and even “that 
silly, frightened Faura Larcom ” she knew far 
surpassed her in the all too evident estimation 
of the small audience. She felt crushed and 
humiliated as she left madam’s door and slipped 
off alone. 

“Sibyl,” called Rose ringingly, “for goodness’ 
sake straighten up ! You walk like a perfect 
dowdy.” 

That was the last straw. “Will you just keep 
your opinions to yourself, please,” Sibyl cried 
wrathfully. 

“ But it’s the truth,” persisted Rose, “ and you 
ought to be told it. The truth can’t hurt you. 
If you want to be classed among vertebrates, 
walk as if you had a backbone.” 

But Sibyl could bear no more. Her lips 
quivered and tears rushed to her eyes. 


A CANDID CRITIC 


13 


“Forgive us, Sibyl dear,” begged Rose in- 
stantly, as she and Made hurried to her. “It 
was mean as could be, but our new club, ‘The 
Candid Critics,’ knowing your belief in out- 
spoken criticism ” 

Suddenly, angry and heartsore as she was, 
Sibyl burst into a half-hysterical laugh. There 
was something irresistibly funny about it, after 
all. 

“How many of you are in it?” she asked, as 
the light began to grow clearer to her. “ Is Bob 
Snell?” 

“Yes.” 

“And Mary and Sue?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Well, you have been merciless, but I forgive 
you. I am glad you thought me worth saving. 
I have certainly figured for the last time as a 
‘candid critic.’ I can’t join your club.” 

“Then we’ll dissolve it,” declared Matie gayly. 
“We are no fonder of it than you are.” 

“ Hurrah for you, Sibyl ! ” exclaimed Sue, com- 
ing up. “I think we have all discovered that 
when we take our lashings, we want a little balm 
at the same time.” 

“ In other words, we’ll look for something to 
commend as well as something to denounce, and 
give tender counsel instead of sharp rebuke,” 


H 


A CANDID CRITIC 


said Sibyl slowly, more to herself than to the 
others. And then this reformed critic added 
with a rueful face : “It was mean, all of you at 
a time; but you are the dearest girls in the 
world, anyhow. Is that balm ? ’’ 


II 


ALICE GANNETTS VACATION 



I LIMB up, 
^ May — hur- 
ry ! Now 
then! does 
it close yet, 
Kate?” 

A shout 
of laughter, 
and Nell 
and May, 
red-faced 
and indig- 
nant, gazed at Kate with a 
silent demand for the reason 
of her untimely mirth. Kate grew 
sober presently, though there were still 
bright tears in her eyes from the excess 
of her enjoyment. 

“ If you two could see how you look, perched 
on the top of that unhappy trunk, you’d come 

15 


1 6 AUCE GANNETT’S VACATION 

off and laugh too. Close? Not much. Not 
by four inches. And until you take out that 
paint box, and your precious botany, and four or 
five dresses, it isn’t going to close. Miss Nell, for 
all your positiveness about being able to pack 
a car-load or so of stuff into one unoffending 
trunk.” 

Nell and May sat digging their dainty heels 
into the gray canvas cover of the abused trunk, 
declaring that if the paint box and botany had 
to come out, Kate herself should have the fun 
of carrying them to the station, and up the hill 
at Woodlawn. 

Woodlawn ! There was magic in the name, 
and trunk and packing were forgotten as the 
three merry friends chattered over the prospect 
of six weeks spent in that delightful place. 

“ Papa never made so happy an investment as 
that, girls,” said gleeful Nell. “A great big, 
cool house, orchards, vegetable gardens, horses, 
fresh air, flowers, vineyards, hammocks — oh, 
everything that is different from the stifling 
town ! Mamma has asked just as many friends 
as the house can accommodate, to spend the time 
there with us, and oh, I am so glad that you can 
both go.” 

Kate, who sat in the broad, low window, sud- 
denly exclaimed, “There goes Miss Gannett — 


AUCE GANNETT’S VACATION 17 

she’s coming in ! ” and a click at the gate con- 
firmed her statement. 

“You needn’t ring,” called Nell. “Come 
across here into the cool, and I’ll be maid and 
attend to you.” 

The face underneath the old gray turban 
smiled gratefully as Nell invited her in through 
the window. 

“ Come in ; this is a new fashion, but you’ll 
find it cooler inside ; and here’s a fan.” 

“ Thank you, I can’t stop ; I must hurry home 
in time for my afternoon pupils. I wanted to 
leave this ‘ Mission Journal ’ for your mother. 
Please tell her she will find the statistics she 
was hunting for in this number. How cool you 
look, girls. Thank you, no, I have not time, for 
Willie Douglas comes at one, and it must be 
nearly that now. Good-bye.” 

For a few moments the girls silently watched 
the thin, gray figure hurrying off down the hot 
street. 

“Giving to missions, and wearing in July a 
gray woolen gown that is four years, old and as 
hot as — as — her fervor ! ” 

“ Teaching school from one year’s end to an- 
other, with private pupils all through vacation, 
an old, fretful mother to support, and no recrea- 
tion or rest.” 


B 


1 8 AUCE GANNETT’S VACATION 

“ Living in a three-room cottage that is like 
an oven, and without a green thing in sight. 
Poor Miss Gannett ! ” 

Then all three girls applied their fans with 
vigor, warm at the very thought of it all. 

When presently Kate and May, arm in arm, 
departed for their respective homes, Nell, at the 
window, stared absently till the last vestige of 
their sun-umbrellas and light ginghams had dis- 
appeared ; then, with eyes fixed on vacancy, she 
dropped into a willow chair and sat like a lay- 
figure until a small sister rushed in to announce 
dinner. 

“Didn’t you hear the bell? What’s the 
matter? You’re the blankest looking thing! 
Come, hurry, we must all gobble to-day in spite 
of the physiologies, or we sha’n’t be ready to 
leave to-morrow.” 

Nell’s silence through the dinner hour passed 
unnoticed in the general clamor, but after that 
time the young lady walked with slow step to 
the airy room loved by the whole family of girls, 
because it was “mamma’s room.” Mrs. Drew 
and Nurse Braxon were busy mending and stow- 
ing away in packing cases the frocks and aprons 
and underwear of the four smaller girls. 

“What has gone wrong? Have I given you 
too large a share of the getting ready to do? 


AUCE gannett’s vacation 19 

Are you tired out?” Mrs. Drew asked anxiously, 
noting the cloud on the fair face of her eldest. 

“No, indeed, you mother-bird. I have finished 
all you gave me to do, and am ready for more. 
But here’s a magazine Alice Gannett left for 
you ; those statistics are in it. Say, mamma, do 
you know that Miss Gannett hasn’t had a vaca- 
tion since I have known her? that she works 
everlastingly, lives in a bake-oven, wears hot 
clothes, and — oh, dear, dear ! ” and with a burst 
of tears Nellie Drew rushed from the room and 
down the stairs. 

“ What possesses the child ? I never knew 
her to give way to an outburst like that,” and 
little Mrs. Drew dropped a heap of pink and 
white apparel, and followed tearful Nell down 
the stairway and into the distant library. 
“Now, Helen, child, what is all this about? 
This will never do. Where there is trouble 
there is usually a way out of it.” 

To her surprise Nell looked up from the 
depths of her woe and her wet handkerchief 
with the brightest of smiles illuminating her 
face. 

“ There is a way out, and I’m so glad I wasn’t 
too piggish to see it. Listen, you mater^ and 
don’t say a word. You’ve known me for fifteen 
happy years, and you never knew me to do a 


20 AUCK GANNETT’S VACATION 

thing for anybody else that was any sacrifice to 
myself, any real sacrifice, I mean. There never 
seemed to be any chance. Well, now there is a 
glorious chance if I manage properly, and you’ll 
help me, I know. I am not going to Woodlawn 
to-morrow. I am going to be Alice Gannett, and 
let Alice Gannett be me. That isn’t grammar, 
but it’s right. She shall go as soon as she can 
get ready, have four weeks of rest and real en- 
joyment, while I stay here with her mother, and 
teach those small boys their ‘ readin’, ’ritin’, and 
’rithmetic.’ May I, oh ! may I, mamma?” 

Mrs. Drew looked at her brown-haired daughter 
a little oddly. 

“ Perhaps, Nellie, we might arrange, with a 
little crowding, to have Miss Gannett go without 
your staying. She might sleep with Clara, and 
then by putting a cot in Kdie’s room for ” 

“ But her mother? The old lady can’t be left, 
and she can’t be taken, for she has dizzy spells 
and doesn’t dare ride on the cars. And mamma, 
if I could get her — old Mrs. Gannett, I mean — 
here into this house, I confess I’d enjoy it better, 
for I believe I should smother outright in that 
little snuggery of theirs. You know you have 
arranged to keep this house open anyway. The 
pupils could come here too, you know ; and 
surely if we should drive very slowly, and in 


AUCE GANNETT’S vacation 21 

the cool of the evening, papa and I could get 
the old lady over here without making her any 
worse. Oh, do say yes, mamma ! Think of the 
good it will do that tired-out woman ; and when 
she comes back freshened and rested, I can rush 
up to Woodlawn and cram six weeks’ good time 
into my remaining two weeks, and be just as 
happy as if I’d gone at first. Will you ? May 
I, mamma?” 

Mrs. Drew herself went with Nellie that 
evening to Alice Gannett’s dingy little home. 
When the plan was unfolded the weary school- 
teacher’s face changed from an expression of 
complete daze to greatest delight, and then to 
weary concern again. 

“You are so very kind, I never can thank you 
enough ; but I couldn’t think of taking this 
pleasure by depriving Nellie of the good times 
she has looked forward to so long. She is tired 
too, for she has worked hard this year at school.” 

“ Oh, I know I’m a terrific worker, while as to 

being tired ” Then with a sudden whisk she 

caught the little teacher and whirled her about 
before the diminutive mirror over her wash-stand. 
“ There now, put your face close to mine, exercise 
your really fine judgment, and answer truthfully, 
which of us looks most in need of rest.” 


22 AUCK GANNETT’S VACATION 

The picture in the glass was a striking one, 
the round, rosy cheeks, the soft, brown hair, and 
the laughing eyes of Nellie Drew in brilliant 
contrast with the pale, tired face of the thin little 
woman at her side. Miss Gannett could only 
smile in her turn, and gently pat the plump 
hand that held her in place before her own re- 
flection. 

“ Well, I do look like rather a poor excuse for 
a woman,” she said slowly. 

‘‘Yes, you do, if you’ll forgive me for saying 
it. You look like the most untiring, devoted 
worker that ever lived, who, being after all but 
flesh and blood, has worn herself into an absolute 
wreck. A wreck ! That’s what you are. Now 
will you just tell me what reason or sense there 
is in your using yourself up like this? Is it 
kind to your pupils ? You can’t teach so well 
when your mental and physical powers are 
strained to the utmost. Is it kind to your 
mother? You’ll soon be as great an invalid as 
she, and where will be the kindness then ? Is 
it kind to me to deprive me of doing the one 
thing of all things I am most anxious to do ? I 
tell you, I’m a spoiled child. Miss Gannett, and 
it doesn’t do not to let me have my own way.” 

In the end she had it. 

The short jouruey to Woodlawn was postponed 


AI.ICE GANNETT’S VACATION 


23 


a day in order to arrange with Miss Gannett’s 
pupils, move the old lady to Mrs. Drew’s home, 
and make what few preparations Alice found 
necessary for her departure. 

May and Kate, from being inconsolable at the 
thought of going without Nell, finally entered 
into the spirit of “ the exchange,” and went to 
work industriously, helping Miss Gannett make 
the single gingham dress in which she had in- 
dulged for her visit. 

When the great hack and the little pony cart 
left the house, loaded promiscuously with 
satchels, packages, and happy people, Nellie 
stood on the front steps and waved them off 
merrily. 

No four weeks ever seemed to her to fly as did 
the four that followed. To be sure, occasionally 
she wanted to shake some particularly provoking 
little boy out of his boots, and sometimes it was 
hard to bear the fault-finding of the childish old 
woman whose broth and gruel never seemed to 
be just right. But even the very dullest little 
boy had his good points, and the very worst 
whinings of the fretful invalid were as feather- 
weights upon her spirits when she could read the 
breezy letters that came daily from the girls 
at Woodlawn. 

Soon the letters began to read like a romance. 


24 AI.ICE GANNETT’S VACATION 

Miss Gannett had gone the first Sunday to the 
little town church a mile away, looking very 
much improved by her few days of country air 
and living. She had taught a class in Sunday- 
school and helped with an afternoon mission 
concert in her own sweet, self-forgetting way. 

This bit of news coming from Kate had a 
postscript from May : 

Her evident influence over her class of burly 
farmer boys, and her gentle enthusiasm in 
meeting were not lost either on the big blonde 
minister who sat on a back seat and watched 
with interest the gray-gowned stranger within 
his gates. 

Then came a loving letter from Mrs. Drew : 

Rev. Mr. Goodall called this afternoon. It 
seems he has known Alice some place before. I 
don’t understand it all ; but certainly she is the 
loveliest character I ever knew. I never half 
appreciated how much earnest Christian zeal lay 
under her quiet exterior. 

Next from Edie : 

I was in the hammick and heard them talking. 
He said it was all a mistake, and she cride and 
laffed at once and said she was old and set and 
had her mother. What do you gess they 
mean? 


AUCE GANNETT’S vacation 25 

Nell guessed a good deal, and felt somewhat 
mystified and wholly delighted. Meanwhile a 
greater surprise was being prepared at home. 
Something — whether it was change of house or 
air or gruel, Nell had no idea — somethiijg was 
improving old Mrs. Gannett. She asked to sit 
near the window, and wanted quilt-patches to 
cut, gaining from this occupation much evident 
enjoyment. Then she grew interested in some 
bright news of the day in “ our advanced peri- 
odicals,” as Nell called them, and began to talk 
of them to the utter routing of the gruel ques- 
tion. 

Often in the evenings, after the sun had gone 
down, and yet before the late twilight, Nell per- 
suaded the little old soul to walk up and down 
across the lawn on the stone paving where there 
was no dew. 

“ I’m — I’m not so dizzy-headed. Isn’t it 
rather unusual, my dear, for a woman of my age 
to walk about like this ? ” 

“ Why, no, Mrs. Gannett. There was that 
dear old friend of mamma’s who visited us. She 
was — let me see — seven years older than you, 
and as brisk as a cricket. You aren’t an old 
woman. Pooh ! I mean to be playing croquet 
and going visiting without my glasses when I’m 
no older than you.” 


26 AUCE GANNETT’S VACATION 

The bent old lady straightened up a bit and 
laughed, not unmusically, amused and rather 
pleased at the girl’s cheery spirit. 

“ I’ll keep it the very stillest secret,” mused 
Nell to herself, “and strike them all dumb with 
amazement when they find how, in four short 
weeks, my invalid, feeble only because she 
thought she ought to be at her age, has been 
metamorphosed into a happy, helpful old lady.” 

Nor was it over-sanguine musing. When the 
four weeks were up and Alice Gannett came 
home looking ten years younger, she stopped in 
the doorway, her little hand-satchel falling with 
a click to the door-sill, for she couldn’t believe 
her eyes when she saw Mother Gannet, smiling, 
cheery, a basket of quilt patches at her hand, 
rising to greet her, even coming forward to meet 
her ! 

Nell hugged them both with some feeling 
under the merry words : “You needn’t have 
thought. Miss Alice, that you could come back 
looking so young and sweet and not find us 
young and sweet too. We’ve been girls together. 
Mother Gannett and I, haven’t we ? ” 

The old lady’s thin lips quivered as she an- 
swered : “At least I have grown young enough 
to realize what a selfish, pampered old woman I 
have been. Alice, dear, generous daughter, with 


AUCE gannett’s vacation 


27 


the L/ord’s help, what life is left to me shall be, 
for your sake, a very different life.” 

“Didn’t you hate to leave them in their 
cramped little home again?” asked Kate and 
May, when the three girls were again together 
exchanging confidences in one of the great, cool 
rooms in the Woodlawn home. 

“Well, not so much, you know,” Nell an- 
swered, with a comical drawl. “Why, you 
geese of girls, hadn’t you eyes ? I could see it 
when I wasn’t here. Put your ears up close, 
qnd don’t breathe it to a soul till I give you 
leave. Mr. Goodall — they were sweethearts long 
ago — parted somehow — Alice cried and I didn’t 
ask particulars — but you know that pretty par- 
sonage over the hill — long piazza, elm trees in 
front, don’t you? Well, Alice and her mother 
will be domiciled there inside of a month ; and 
though Alice had prepared him for the worst, 
any man might envy him his mother-in-law 
elect. He’s a good man, and she’s a grand good 
woman, and,” with a quiver in her merry voice, 
“ I thank God for that hot day when I sat howl- 
ing at home, making up my mind to forget self 
for once in my life, and do a humble bit for 
him.” 


Ill 


HOW JESSICA LEARNED 



AY I walk in?” said good Frau 
Meyer brokenly ; and Cornelia, lift- 
ing herself upon her elbow, said, 
“Yes,” trying to smile, and then 
fell back again, a disconsolate heap upon the 
narrow bed, crying as though her heart would 
break. 

“ Tut, tut ! for how is this ? I rub your back 
with my good grease. Or is it the feet ? ” 

“ Oh, it’s back and feet, and — everything ! ” 
“In time you will get used to it.” 

“ Or die,” the girl said bitterly. “ Why 
should I get used to it, Frau Meyer? What 
good will come of it in the end? Just enough 
bread and butter to keep cheerless body and 
soul together. And in the meantime I shall 
grow to despise human kind. Such arrogance, 
such self-absorption, such disregard for the feel- 
ings and comforts of others ! ” 

“ Ach, I thought ! ” broke in the elder woman 
28 


HOW JESSICA EEARNED 


29 


excitedly. “ It was not so much back and feet, 
as heart. I know my stout-courage friend give 
up never so quick to ache of body. But ache 
of heart — that is different. Well, now, lieb- 
chen^ tell it out. Was it the big, fat woman 
who says, ‘ Hustle up here and cut me twenty 
yards red vanity?’ or was it the man of one lung 
and two livers who scold because his change 
come in silver, not bills.” 

Cornelia laughed in spite of herself at the 
droll, good-natured mimicry ; and as the cheery, 
motherly soul began to rub her tired back 
briskly, she said with grateful penitence, “ Dear 
Frau Meyer, I was a wicked sinner to fret you 
with these silly tears. I ought to be ashamed 
to complain when you are here to brace me up 
and comfort me just as any own mother might. 
But they are all alike ; heartless, soulless, car- 
ing only for themselves and their pleasure. To- 
day it was really the last straw when one ele- 
gantly dressed girl priced everything at our 
counter, had me tear down and sort over goods 
until my arms tingled to my shoulders, asking, 
‘ Will it fade ? ’ ‘ How wide ? ’ and paying no 

attention to my answers, until she finally went 
away without buying anything, and brought me 
a reprimand for not having sold to so patient 
and long-searching a customer. Do you blame 


30 


HOW JESSICA LEARNED 

me for aching, Frau Meyer, when there are such 
things to be endured all day, and through many 
days to come ? I try so hard to be quick and 
willing and careful, but- it isn’t easy, and I feel 
as if I must just cry it out here at night.” 

“ And so is right, if it help you.” 

“It is you who help me, you dear,” said the 
girl, sitting up at last on the edge of the bed, 
and patting the plump, red hand. “ And if 
ever I am rich again, you shall haye such caps 
and gowns and good times as will do' your heart 
good. Surely, in the old days I was never like 
that careless girl who toyed with the silks at 
our counter to-day, and was too selfish or too in- 
different to see ” 

“Ach, now! You were gracious and sweet, 
I know, in that good time — and are now — too 
much to be judge for this other girl, who is bet- 
ter, maybe, than we know.” And then as a 
jangling bell sounded in the hall, the good soul 
bustled off, calling back, “ I send Minna to show 
you that stitch for your muff.” 

A moment later Cornelia, answering, “ Come 
in,” to a rap at her door, was startled to see, in- 
stead of Minna, a handsome figure in furs step- 
ping airily into her little room. 

“ I’ve been reading about you poor shop-girls,” 
said the figure blithely, “ and when we girls gave 


HOW JESSICA EEARNED 


31 


our last bazaar for the poor and the heathen, I 
just determined to use some of the funds for 
you.’’ 

A hot flush was rising to Cornelia’s pale face, 
but her visitor, not seeing it, or supposing it to 
come from pleasure, continued patronizingly : 

“ I selected you this afternoon of all the ones 
I tested, because you didn’t lose your temper 
the whole hour you waited on me. You see I 
wanted to be sure our charity was worthily be- 
stowed, so I had myself made the committee to 
see to it, and I’ve put in the whole afternoon. 
Here is five dollars for you,” and she thrust a 
bank-note into Cornelia’s hand. 

Cornelia, still standing, a bright spot glowing 
in either cheek, dropped the money as though 
it had burned her. 

“ I am not in need of charity,” she said hotly, 
“ excepting such charity as Christian people are 
supposed to bear each other. I find none of it 
in the girl who gives me an hour’s unnecessary 
work that she may insult me afterward. Take 
your money. You never should have entered 
here had I known your errand.” 

When the door of that bare room banged 
forcibly shut, no one could have told which 
girl was the more angry, more ashamed — the 
one without or the one within. 


32 


HOW JESSICA EEARNKD 


“ Charity ! Charity ! ” Cornelia groaned. 
“ Where was my own that I dared order her 
from my room ? ” 

The figure in furs, hurrying down the dark- 
ening street, blinked two shining tears from her 
long brown lashes, and shook her head wrath- 
fiilly as she did it. With swift-flying feet she 
sped through the narrow streets and into the 
broad avenue, to “go and tell Dell all about the 
horrid, stuck-up, insolent thing.’’ 

She burst in like a gale upon the two girls 
sitting in the glow of the firelight in Della’s 
beautiful home. 

“ Dell ! Sue ! I’ve done it ! And great good 
it did ! I’ll never pity poor shop-girls again ; 
ungrateful things ! She isn’t nearly so tall as 
I, but she made me feel inches smaller, and she 
flung open her door like a queen to hurry me 

out. But let me tell you ” and drawing up 

a chair, and throwing back her heavy wrap, she 
recited graphically the whole story. 

“ Perhaps she didn’t need it, anyhow,” Sue 
ventured consolingly. 

“Not need it? She was as shabby as a beg- 
gar, and her room was about as comfortable as 
our barn, and not half so well appointed. Here, 
Dell, you’re treasurer. Take the money. I’ve 
had enough missionary work to last me a good 


HOW JESSICA EEARNKD 


33 


while. That piece of grandeur in twenty-cent 
mixed cotton has cured me of my sorrow for the 
indigent poor.” 

“The indignant poor, in this case,” amended 
Sue, as the door closed upon Jessica’s stylish 
figure. 

Then she and Della looked at each other and 
laughed. 

“ Poor Jess ! If one could only buy tact by 
the yard, what a dear girl she might become.” 

“Yet she doesn’t realize and never will, I sup- 
pose, that she always rubs folks the wrong way 
and brings her troubles upon herself. Perhaps 
she’s not to be blamed for lack of tact.” 

“ I don’t know. Sue. There is a kind of tact 
that comes simply from genuine kindliness and 
sympathy. If Jessica had this — but I’ve no 
doubt she was patronizing to the last degree in 
this case, and any spirited girl would resent it. 
I, for one, am interested in this girl. Works at 
Black’s at the silk counter, she said, and lives 
far out on Olive Street.” 

“ Della ! ” Sue suddenly clutched her friend 
excitedly. “ I wonder if this isn’t that slender 
little blonde who comes to our church, wears 
gray, and always sits back near the door, on the 
right ? ” 

“ What makes you think so ? ” 
c 


34 


HOW JESSICA learned 


“Why, I’ve been trying for a long time to 
think where I’ve seen that face, and I believe it 
was at Black’s at that very counter. I will find 
out, anyway. And let’s see if this twenty-cent 
girl who lives in a barn — was that what she 
said? — can’t be helped in a better way. She 
looks like a bright, sweet, overworked girl, and 
I don’t suppose her life is any too wildly happy.” 

By the following Sunday Sue had “ settled for 
sure ” the identity of the girl in gray with the 
girl at Black’s ; and Della, had she seen it, would 
have understood why Sue was late at church 
that day and had to sit far back just behind the 
“ impudent shop-girl,” who looked modest and 
humble enough in her quiet gown, with her thin, 
sad face. She would have understood too, why 
Sue had so carefully supplied herself with two 
hymn books, that she might naturally offer one, 
with the brightest of smiles, to the girl in front. 

The next day Sue professed a burning eager- 
ness for a shade of old rose surah, and appar- 
ently absorbed in the search for it at Black’s 
silk counter, suddenly looked up to exclaim, 
“ I beg your pardon, but aren’t you the Miss 
Vaughan who attends our church and sings such 
a clear, rich contralto ? ” 

Cornelia flushed with pleasure. 

“ I attend Dr. Steven’s church,” she assented. 


HOW JESSICA EEARNED 


35 


“ my name is Vaughan, and I think you are the 
young lady who was kind enough to pass me 
her hymn book yesterday.” 

“ Then you will be kind enough to do some- 
thing for me, I hope. We are planning the 
loveliest cantata for our Mission Circle, and 
we are quite in despair because Mademoiselle 
Teboir, who always took our alto parts, has gone 
away, and we have not known where to get an- 
other voice strong enough. It isn’t so very hard, 
and you’ll only have to run it over a time or two 
in the evenings. We pay ten dollars — little 
enough to make it a tremendous favor, if you 
will do it.” 

To Cornelia, working for six dollars a week, 
the sum seemed munificent. 

“ If — if you think I could do it.” 

“ I am sure you could. That was an utterly 
new hymn we had yesterday. Didn’t you read it 
at sight ? ” 

Cornelia nodded. “I used to study music 
before — a long time ago,” she said. 

Thus it came about that Cornelia practised 
with the young music lovers in the pretty can- 
tata, and was received so cordially, and so much 
as though she had always been one of them, 
that her old views of the selfishness and arro- 
gance in the world began to fade away. 


36 


HOW JESSICA EEARNED 


The ten dollars helped her scant support, but 
the warm friendliness helped her heart and soul 
as no Aladdin’s wealth ever could have. 

Jessica, seeing these things, actually learned 
some new lessons in charity, and went home the 
night of the cantata singing to the air of Cor- 
nelia’s sweetest solo, “ Charity vaunteth not 
itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself 
unseemly.” Then she added under her breath, 
“I’ll help her too — out of that store and into 
pleasanter places ; and wait until I show them 
that I have learned how to do it.” 


IV 


BESIDE ALL WATERS 


“ W WISH it was all to do again, mamma. I’m 

|l so sorry to have it done with.” 

IJ, “ What, sweet ? ” 

^ “ Why, Christmas — the work, the plan- 

ning, the looking forward to it. I don’t know 
how well folks feel, now that it’s gone, but I feel 
woefully blank.” 

Mrs. Field looked with sympathy into the face 
of the pale little girl in the great chair at the 
window. “ But you still have your pretty, soft 
slippers, your manicure set, the new books, and 
the oranges,” she said with the oddest little 
smile. 

“ Ye-es,” Joy replied slowly. 

“ Bless your heart ! ” the tender mother said 
suddenly, with an impetuous movement toward 
the big chair and a sudden caress of the tired 
little figure. “ Don’t think your stupid marmee 
doesn’t see. It is not the receiving, but the giv- 
ing that is blessed ; and now that Kitty has the 

37 


BESIDE ALE WATERS 


38 

toboggan cap you worked so faithfully to finish, 
now that Tom has his warm wristlets and Madge 
her pretty bag, and the old marmee the breakfast 
cap that has made her so vain, and all other folks 
their various ‘s’prises,’ the fun has gone, and 
the childie draws her little white chin down into 
her laces until she looks like that little stem of 
lilies that has wilted since Christmas too.” 

The white chin rounded a bit then with the 
sudden smile that seemed somehow always to 
follow the mamma’s funny little sympathies, but 
the mamma went right on with the brightest 
answering smile: “Now, I am going off for a 
run down town to see how Biddy and the chicks 
are doing with their chicken-pox. I don’t mind 
leaving my wilted blossom here one little bit, 
for I mean to give her something to think about 
before I leave.” Then with an air of gravest 
mystery she added : “ How would you like a bit 
of Christmas every day — that part of Christmas, 
I mean? ” 

“ The giving, mamma ? ” 

“Yes, childie, the giving.” 

“ To Tom, and Madge, and ” 

Mrs. Field was looking suggestively toward 
the window and shaking her head. “Look 
out,” she said briefly. “ It will give you some- 
thing to think about while I’m gone.” From 


BESIDE AEE WATERS 


39 


the doorway she called with a gay little laugh, 
“ What, Tom and Madge ! Those two pampered 
pets of indulgent parents ! ” Then with sudden 
seriousness, ‘“Blessed are ye that sow beside 
all waters.’ Good-bye now, and God bless the 
little sower.” 

For a long time after Joy heard the street 
door close, she lay looking out over the hya- 
cinths that bloomed in her window and won- 
dering. “ Beside all waters — sowing, giving ! 
Well, Tom and Kitty and Madge really have 

about all they need, and ” and then she 

caught the lever at the side of her great chair 
and changed her position so that she could see 
the street, for she had caught through the frosty- 
air the sound of a familiar whistle. 

“It’s that freckle-faced Tang boy,” she ex- 
claimed, “ and he’s out collecting, or something.” 

Then she began thinking about the Lang boy 
and trying to recall what she had heard about 
him the night before. She had been almost 
asleep there in the dusk, and yet she had heard 
through her drowsiness Tom and his friend Ed 
saying that Lang was away from home for the 
first time, that he was a “ regular brick of a fel- 
low,” but had begun to play billiards with some 
West End fellows and had “ sort o’ dropped out 
of Christian Endeavor and Sunday-school.” 


40 


BESIDE ADD WATERS 


Joy watched him out of sight. “ How bright 
and merry his whistle sounds ! just as Will 
Harrows’ used to before he began to drink.” 
Then there dawned a new thoughtfulness upon 
her face. “ Why, what an idea ! ” she exclaimed 
aloud, so ringingly that the canary sunning him- 
self in the window set up a lively chatter. 
“Well, it’ll do no harm, anyway,” she said 
again, after watching the downy bird contempla- 
tively. 

She lay thinking a long time, occasionally 
writing a bit on the tablet Tom had given her 
for Christmas. “ There now ! I think that will 
do,” she said finally, with the air of a judge. “It 
sounds ever so friendly and interested, and per- 
haps it will make him think. I mean to sign 
it, ‘ Your fairy godmother,’ and then if he plays 
billiards again how will he know that my sharp 
eyes may not shine out suddenly from beside the 
balls and my wings flutter across the green table 
and put him to flight ! If his new godmother 
can’t see him always, there is One who can. I’ll 
help him to feel that too. I must be very care- 
ful,” with a happy little sigh. “ ‘ Beside all 
waters.’ But that couldn’t mean Will Harrows ; 
he’s past working with,” and then she fell into 
another brown study. 

When Mrs. Field came home with all her 


BKSIDB AI.I. WATERS 


41 


funny stories of Biddy’s droll children and their 
chicken-pox, she found the sunniest-faced little 
sick girl she had seen for many a day, busily 
handling her brushes by the flower-decked win- 
dow. 

“Where’s that ‘ woefully blank ’ daughter of 
mine ? ” she asked ; 
and Joy answered 
seriously, “ Getting 
ready to sow. Are 
her seed 
worthy? 
and s h 
held u 
the 
little 
to 

Ivang. 

As sh 
read 

was th 
least mis- 
tiness about Mrs. Field’s eyes ; but she only 
said, with a squeeze of the busy fingers, “ No 
one but my dear little daughter could have said 
it in that pretty, touching way.” 

Joy looked up with a grateful light in her big 
gray eyes. “ But, mamma,” she said, “ I want 



42 


BESIDE ALE WATERS 


you to write the letter to Will Harrows. You 
can give it the mother tone. He hasn’t any 
mother, you know, poor fellow ! And I’m doing 
this to go with it. It’s a pledge-card, marmee. 
I thought if I painted the very daintiest one I 
could, he might feel more interested in it, know- 
ing that somebody cared that much.” 

“Bless your heart!” Mrs. Field said again, 
looking down upon the lovely card and the sol- 
emn words lettered so beautifully upon it. Then 
she too began to catch the spirit of the sower. 
“ One, motherless ; the other quite away from 
home influence,” she said. “ Something ought 
to be done about those boys.” 

It was so much more of a something than 
Joy had ever dreamed, that it took time to bring 
it about. 

In the meantime, away on the next morning’s 
post flew the two little letters, followed by many 
a wistful wish from the girl at the window. 

For a “shut in” it was wonderful how much 
sowing she found to do. There was the lone- 
some spinster school teacher who passed to and 
from the Normal every day. Joy painted her 
the very sweetest swinging calendar, with June- 
time boughs and birds all over it, and sent it 
with a cunning bit of poetry from “A friend 
who loves you dearly.” 


BESIDE AEE WATERS 


43 


Also there was the cross old maid who lived 
on the next square, and walked so unbendingly 
and looked as though she had never had a bit of 
sweet in her whole life. Such a time as Joy had 
selecting the loveliest hyacinth from her window- 
garden, tying it up in the neatest way, and writ- 
ing a verse to suit it, and to tell poor Miss Car- 
man that somebody had a pleasant thought for 
her ! 

There were besides, the washerwoman, and 
poor, tired Mrs. Chase, who sewed for a living, 
and the lame boy who brought the “Herald.” 
There seemed no end to Joy’s Christmas giving. 
Then too, each new plan suggested another until 
she had all the work she could do, and was 
happy as a lark all day. 

“ If only you don’t wear out, your very cheeri- 
ness will cure you,” the old doctor said ; and 
Joy, lying in her easy-chair one night just be- 
fore the lamps were lighted, heard something 
which made her feel almost well in earnest. 

Tom and Bd were talking again by the fire, 
and it was Will Harrows’ name that first at- 
tracted her thoughts from their own wanderings. 
Ed was saying in his most impressive way, 
“They say it’s a dead sure thing that Will Har- 
rows has stopped drinking. The fellows can’t 
drag him into a saloon now. He says he has 


44 


BKSIDB ABIv WATERS 


signed a pledge and he doesn’t mean to go back 
on his word. Isn’t that splendid ? ” 

“ Well, I should say ! ” Tom answered. “ And 
I can tell you something else ; I believe Tang 
had something to do with it. You see, about a 
month ago Lang dropped those West End fel- 
lows and all their dissipation, and he told me 
confidentially that a letter from somebody’s little 
mother made him do it. ‘ It’s pretty tough on a 
fellow to be away from his mother,’ he said to 
me, ‘ and I know how to feel for Will Harrows 
better than you chaps can.’ I guess he has been 
working with Will.” 

“ Shouldn’t wonder,” Ed replied thoughtfully, 
while Joy at her window smiled radiantly in the 
shadow. 

But if ever a girl grew into her name, Joy 
did, when, a few days later, she heard that 
“ Marmee Field,” having fitted up the room over 
the library, meant to take Darrell Lang and 
Will Harrows right under her own wing, to 
“mother” the big, lonesome fellows to their 
hearts’ content. 

“ Well, you two are in luck ! ” the boys of their 
set said to them in talking the matter over after- 
ward. “There isn’t a lady in town who loves 
boys and knows how to make the right sort of 
them, as Mrs. Field does.” 


BESIDE ALE WATERS 


45 


“ She’s a grand, good woman ! ” Will ex- 
claimed fervently. “If I don’t turn out ‘the 
right sort ’ with her to help me, and dear little 
Miss Joy too, then I’m not worth saving, that’s 
all.” 

When he repeated that thought with awkward 
boyishness to the “grand, good woman” herself, 
she said, with her white hand resting for a mo- 
ment on his brown curls and her kind face seri- 
ous, “‘When I said, my foot slippeth; thy 
mercy, O Lord, held me up ’ ” ; while Joy, in the 
old chair which she would soon leave, according 
to the doctor’s promise, thought with a quiver 
of happiness of that other text of the mother’s 
and its good fruit, “Blessed are ye that sow be- 
side all waters.” 


V 


A LITTLE DRESSMAKER 


HERE now, that’s just as stylish and 
pretty as it can be ! ” said Amy War- 
ner, gazing complacently at the rosy 
face reflected in her mirror. “How 
aesthetic you will look. Mistress Amy ! That 
green is delicious and the quaint style is as be- 
coming as can be.” 

“ Mistress Amy ” being often alone in her 
pretty room, had fallen into a habit of carrying 
on extended conversations with herself ; and the 
sunny day, the becoming gown — tried on for the 
last time to receive its finishing touches — and 
her delight in its prettiness, made the conversa- 
tion longer and more rapid than usual. 

“When I think,” she chattered to the Amy in 
the glass, “of the gowns I used to wear — that 
awful blue thing with the baggy basque, and 
that striped red and brown with the ugly, 

bunchy drapery ” and she gave an amused 

laugh, full of little exclamation points. 

46 



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« 1 •* 


A UTTI.K DRESSMAKER 


47 


“ That was before I learned to make my own 
clothes, but now ! Isn’t it trim and pretty, 
doesn’t it set well, and isn’t it a very type of 
simplicity and quaintness? So glad I haven’t 
an ugly, squeezed-in waist ; how it would look 
in this ! Now I must remember to keep the 
velvet tucked up high at the back of the neck 
and the point of the corsage straight. To carry 
out the idea of the cut, I ought to walk rather 
languidly and use a dark fan and an old-time 
vinaigrette. Now I’ll lay it away till evening 
and run and help mamma with Johnnie’s shirt- 
waists.” 

“ Amy, you are invaluable,” Mrs. Warner said 
a few minutes later, watching the young girl’s 
flying fingers as they deftly handled the new 
shirt-waists ; and yet, pleased as she felt over 
the timely aid, before the afternoon was done 
something that was not pleasure brought the 
worried little wrinkles to her forehead. She 
had never noticed before how much Amy talked 
of dress. Could it be absorbing as much of her 
thought as it seemed to be? Amy had never 
been vain, of that she felt sure, for though bright 
and sweet and attractive, Amy was not pretty, 
as everybody knew — none better than Amy her- 
self. 

“ Do you remember, dear, two years ago, how 


A LITTI.E DRESSMAKER 


48 

you wriggled about when Miss Spriggs tried to 
fit your dresses, how you disliked it, and how 
you amused us by wishing that people could be 
‘ born with feathers like birds ’ ? ” 

Amy laughed merrily. “ I was thinking of 
it only to-day,” she said, “ and of some of the 
frightful-looking things I used to wear. You 
were not to blame, dear ; you couldn’t have been 
expected to plan for so big a girl as I. Poor 
Miss Spriggs ! I don’t wonder she never got 
anything to fit. What a guy I must have 
looked ! ” 

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Warner commented 
thoughtfully. “It never seemed so to me. I 
don’t think people noticed your clothes much 
then ; you always looked happy and bright and 
— and healthy.” 

. “ Healthy ! ” exclaimed Amy laughing. “ Oh, 
you dear, funny mamma. I was exuberantly 
energetic and busy, wasn’t I? Well, people 
have to be healthy to keep up that kind of thing 
very long, sure enough. I guess I was rather 
a tornado with all the plans I tried to work out, 
and all the studies I had on hand. And in that 
red and brown horror — oh, dear ! ” Amy laughed 
again at the thought of it. 

lyittle Mrs. W^arner felt a flush upon her cheek. 
It puzzled her, this new something in Amy. 


A LITTI.E DRESSMAKER 


49 


With a view to talking of other things, she 
asked hastily, “ Has Walter learned his new 
song, yet? Papa is very anxious to hear it.” 

“ Really, mamma, I haven’t had a minute to 
try it with him. You know last night I was 
busy as could be fixing the shirred piece for the 
front of my new gown, and the night before that 
I was hard at work on the buttonholes. If Wal- 
ter were only out of school we could practise at 
odd minutes during the day.” 

Mrs. Warner sighed, but added cheerfully, 
“ Oh, well, that ‘ Tarantelle ’ of yours will make 
up to papa for the other until it can be learned.” 

Amy looked rather guilty, though she said 
nothing. Her father would not ask her to play 
that night, for they were all going to the con- 
cert ; perhaps before another evening she could 
practise the “ Tarantelle,” as she had neglected 
it for a week. 

“ There now, mamma, the last stitch is done. 
We’ll just have time to brush up for tea.” And 
Amy sped along the hall to her own room. 

They had early teas at Elmwood, and as soon 
as the family had assembled in the library after 
tea this evening, Walter asked : “ Can’t we have 
a chapter of ‘ Zig-zag Journeys ’ now? ” 

“ Oh, dear, no ; I must run up and dress for 
the concert.” 


D 


50 


A LITTI.E DRESSMAKER 


“ Why, it’s only seven o’clock. You used to 
dress in half an hour.” 

“ Dressing wasn’t a fine art, then,” Amy re- 
torted laughingly. “ If you knew how many 
little bits it takes to make my harmony in 
green ” and away she went upstairs. 

“ Seems to me Amy doesn’t have time for 
nothin’ any more,” Roger declared disgustedly. 
“ She used to pump up with me in the swing, 
and read stories to Johnnie and me, and play 
tunes for us, and now she’s just always a-fixin’ 
somethin’, or hurryin’ to get dressed.” 

Amy meanwhile, in her own room, was prac- 
tising just the movement of her fan which 
seemed to correspond best with the ‘‘languid 
drapery ” of the green gown. 

It was the Mendelssohn Quintette Club they 
were to hear, and Amy knew that “ everybody ” 
would be there. She hoped that Mrs. Krum, 
just returned from New York, would notice how 
she had improved. She could even fancy her 
saying, “ Why, Amy Warner is growing almost 
pretty.” She wondered if that over-dressed Nell 
Ward wouldn’t feel half-ashamed when brought 
into contrast with “this simple, charming thing.” 
She hoped that Dincoln Dale, who was coming 

for her, would appreciate it She started 

and listened. 


A dressmaker 51 

A great raindrop had hit the window pane — 
two, three, a lusty patter. Amy shaded her eyes 
and stared out into the darkness dismayed. 

“ Oh, dear ! Absolutely pouring, and this 
green spots. I can’t wear it; what shall I do? 
My brown’s too shabby, my black silk too nice, 
and if I wear the terra-cotta some of those girls 
will think I haven’t had anything new for a 
year. Besides, I haven’t a single hat that goes 
well with it.” 

Then a bright idea occurred to her, “My old 
cashmere ! I might wear a black lace jabot 
down the front of it, do my hair in a Psyche 
knot, and carry mamma’s black lace fan. I’ll 
make it look pretty yet.” 

And it did look pretty, she thought, until she 
had settled comfortably into the seat beside 
Lincoln and saw just before her Nell Ward in a 
dress that was “ not her own taste, certainly,” 
being particularly artistic and pretty. Amy lost 
the benefit of the first two numbers, trying to 
see how the odd drapery was attached at the 
shoulder and what new wrinkle Nell had in the 
fashion of dressing her hair. 

Going home over moist walks but under clear 
skies, Walter, Lincoln, and the music-loving 
papa discussed with delight the different beauti- 
ful selections they had heard. Amy said little. 


52 


A I.ITTI.K DRESSMAKER 


It was strange how the change in her dress had 
spoiled her evening’s pleasure. 

“ Never mind, I’ll wear it to-morrow night at 
Kit Brown’s conversazione^'' she thought ; and 
still planning for that and wondering whether 
she should wear pink roses or white snowdrops 
over the green, she fell asleep. 

“ Amy may not be pretty,” her brothers had 
often commented, “but oh, my, how she can 
talk ! ” And truth to tell, when the merry 
tongue chattered and the brown eyes danced, 
her friends forgot how inclined to plainness her 
round face was. 

But alas for the merry tongue and the danc- 
ing eyes at Kitty Brown’s conversazione I There 
was nothing piquant about that green gown ; it 
was plain, severe, and flowing, and Amy knew 
better than to ruin its effect by liveliness of 
manner. Conscious all the evening that she 
was thoroughly “ correct ” and looking her best, 
she yet wondered why she went home feeling 
blank and dull and dissatisfied. 

The sight of the sweeping green gown in her 
mirror brought a burst of tears. 

“ I never looked so well and I never had such 
a miserable time,” she said. “ Everybody else 
had a merry evening, even Minnie Beck in that 
dowdy old gray-and-brown plaid.” Then some 


A I.ITOI.B DRESSMAKER 


53 


new train of thought caused Mistress Amy to sit 
bolt upright and stare very fixedly at nothing, 
finally, with an odd laugh, clapping one quick 
hand over her mouth. . 

“ ‘ If thou hast thought evil, lay thy hand upon 
thy mouth,’ ” she said. “ Dear me ! I have been 
evil-thinking all the time and I hardly knew it. 
I thought it wonderfully clever and good to 
make my own clothes and do my own planning ; 
and to think that I did not see that I was grow- 
ing vain as vain could be and actually feeling a 
contemptuous pity for dear old Minnie and good 
little Sue ! I deserved to have a miserable time — 
self-absorbed, ridiculous creature ! Did I think 
of a thing besides how my folds fell, how that 
velvet set, and how superior in general my array 
was, compared with — the brown-and-gray plaid, 
for instance ? 

“ I suppose Minnie hardly knew what she 
wore. She spent the evening entertaining one 
and another with bright, interesting bits that 
did them all good, I know, while I — I simply 
couldn’t talk at all, for fear it wouldn’t be ‘ in 
keeping.’ What a fool I was ! I think God 
gave me a dose of particular dullness just to 
open my wicked eyes ; and I honestly believe 
that I’ve learned the lesson he meant to teach. 
How could I think sensible, helpful things. 


54 


A dressmaker 


when my mind was just a cramped little 
quarter through which stylish collars, elegant 
sleeves, and stately gowns went trooping? Now 
I mean to try to remember that good old quo- 
tation from St. Ephraim, ‘Think of good that 
you may avoid thinking of evil,’ and I’ll add to 
it, ‘and do a little honest, serious, profitable 
living, to avoid the snare of frills and draperies 
and small affectations.’ ” 

It was two weeks later that Mrs. Warner said 
rather shyly to Amy, “ Do you know, dear, I had 
an unreasonable little worry about you not long 
ago ? ” 

“ About me, mamma ? ” Amy asked. But 
before any more could be said, Roger’s brown 
head appeared in the doorway. 

“Say, sis, papa’s getting hungry for some 
music, and Walter wants him to hear your duet. 
Come on down.” 

“All right, small boy, in a minute. But 
mamma,” and the voice grew earnest, “ I know 
what you mean and indeed I hope there’ll be no 
cause for worrying any more. I was as blind as 
a bat, until all in a minute God opened my eyes 
before a very new kind of mirror. After this, 
when I fit my new gowns, I mean to think more 
of another sort of fitness, the fitness of heart and 
of soul.” 


A UTTlvK DRESSMAKER 


55 


“Now that’s the kind of dressmaker I love,” 
Mrs. Warner said impulsively, watching her 
daughter out of sight ; and a moment later, 
listening with a glow of pride to the expressive 
duet, she added emphatically, “ the very kind of 
dressmaker I love ! ” * 


VI 


BARBARA'S STRATAGEM 


f ED rested both arms on the rail fence and 
looked out over the cornfield with wrin- 
kles of perplexity on his brown face. 
“It must be Barbara,” he thought 
“And out in that broiling sun too. It’s enough 
to frizzle her hair. Barbara, oh-h Bar-ba-ra ! ” 
raising his voice to a shout ; but Barbara, out in 
the cornfield, hurried all the faster on to the 
walnut tree and its friendly shade. 

With a long whistle Jed vaulted the fence 
and hurried after her. Evidently she had not 
heard his call ; but what in the name of all the 
blackbirds had sent her racing out to that walnut 
tree when the house was cool and shady and the 
hammocks swung on the breezy porch ? 

The nearer he approached her the deeper grew 
the perplexed wrinkles, until suddenly they were 
all chased away by an expression of blank, open- 
eyed wonder. Barbara crying — crying as though 
her heart would break — pretty, merry Barbara ! 
56 


BARBARA’S STRATAGEM 57 

They had been friends and comrades from 
babyhood, and never before had Jed witnessed 
a storm like this. He felt uneasy. Perhaps he 
would better run back across the fields to wait 
until the skies cleared ; but how could he leave 
her like this? Poor Barbara! He felt very, 
very sorry for her. He stepped nearer, and touch- 
ing one soft braid of her pretty brown hair, 
asked nervously : 

“ What is it, Barbara dear ? Can’t I help you ? 
What makes you so sad ? ” 

“ Sad 1 ” The emphasis of the monosyllable 
made him jump and step back a pace. “Sad, 
yon goose I Sad 1 I’m in a perfect towering 
rage, that’s what’s the matter with me. Do I 
look sad, pray ? ” and a laugh rang out upon the 
hot air, ending with a wrathful sob as she shook 
the tears from the brown lashes. “I’m furiously 
angry, and I can’t help just howling about it. 
It’s so horrible, Jed, to be furious about a thing 
and not know how to stop it.” 

The mixed rhetoric puzzled poor Jed as much 
as the tears had, and he asked in bewilderment, 
“Do you mean you don’t know how to stop 
being furious, or how to stop the cause of the 
fury, or — what do you mean, anyway. Barb? 
What has brought on this towering rage ? ” 

“ Mamma is working herself to death.” 


58 


BARBARA’S STRATAGEM 


Every word was measured off with a nod of 
the brown head and a flash of the angry eyes. 
Jed would have laughed if Barbara had not 
looked so desperately in earnest ; but he had no 
time to do so before she continued excitedly : 

‘‘You wouldn’t imagine that this is our regu- 
lar sweeping day, to look at me, would you? 
I’m to sit quiet with my books or fancy work, I 
am ; and there is mamma in that hateful house, 
with the perspiration dripping from every 
pore, hot, dust-covered, tired, and with every 
possible prospect of a big attack of neuralgia to 
pay for getting so overheated. This sort of thing 
has been going on ever since I came home from 
school ; mamma sweeping, dusting, cake-making, 
sewing, rushing around from morning until 
night with a dustcloth in her hand and Are in 
her eye, while I stand around and gnash my 
teeth with impotent rage because I’m not 
allowed to help in any way. Why ? You may 
well ask why. Well, sir, for fear I won’t do it 
properly. How can she know how I’d do it 
when she never tries me ? Perhaps it wouldn’t 
be all right at first, but do I look like a dolt ? 
Couldn’t I learn ? ” 

Jed didn’t think she looked in the least like a 
dolt, and he did think she could learn, but he 
didn’t have time to say so. 


BARBARA’S STRATAGEM 


59 


“ It’s an outrageous shame ! Mamma has no 
time to read, to write, to sing, to think even. 
She has a glorious voice. Don’t I remember 
how it used to thrill this assembled town on 
special occasions? Now she is simply a house- 
maid, a drudge. Why not keep a house girl ? 
Can’t papa afford it ? Well I should say he can ; 
and doesn’t he storm privately as much as I, 
and meekly propose getting a housemaid, once a 
week ? And doesn’t mamma flash scorn from 
her pretty, tired eyes, and tell him that no hired 
girl could do her work ; that she’d be sure not 
to shake out the draperies daily or sweep in the 
corners. I almost want to swear ! ” 

Jed looked horrified, then, boy-like, proposed 
a few remedies for the evil under discussion ; but 
as his suggestions were received with either 
shouts of laughter or silent derision, he subsided 
sympathetically into Barbara’s own state of abject 
despondency, and spent with her a very dark 
afternoon for so sunny a day. 

The next morning, bright and early, as he 
and Barbara were to go blackberrying — “ to give 
mamma a better chance to kill herself — nice 
weather for jam-making,” Barbara had snapped — 
he and his buckets were waiting upon the piazza, 
but when that young woman stepped outj she 
simply announced, “ Can’t go.” 


6o 


BARBARA’S STRATAGEM 


“ Well, that’s nice, after I’ve come a mile for 
you ! You look precious sorry.” 

“Don’t be sarcastic, Jed. Mamma is really 
sick, just as I knew she would be. She has per- 
fect paroxysms of pain right along, and though 
just now she is sleeping, encased in mustard 
plasters and surrounded by hot water bottles, of 
course I can’t leave her.” 

“ Of course not. But Barbara, you talk as if 
you hadn’t any heart. How can you look as 
merry as a skylark with your mother ill as that ? ” 

“ Oh, Jed ! ” and Barbara clapped her hands 
softly. “ It is too lovely ! Of course I am sorry 
she is sick ; but that blessed doctor has com- 
manded that she stay in bed one good, long 
week, and then be packed o£E to some springs in 
the mountains. It’s liver trouble too, not seri- 
ous, but requiring rest and attention ; and — oh, 
Jed, you stupid, don’t you see my chance? 
Nurse first, and then housemaid ; a chance to 
prove that I have a head for something besides 
poetry, and hands for something besides fancy 
work.” 

Jed whistled. “ Well, Barbara, upon my 
word, you’re a queer one. I’ll go and get some 
blackberries anyway — enough for your tea. 
Meanwhile try to get a little decent, daughterly 
sorrow into your face.” And he was o£E. 


BARBARA’S SO'RATAGBM 6 1 

How Barbara’s feet flew all that day ! When- 
ever not needed at her mother’s side she was 
flitting from room to room doing the regular 
Saturday work with a vim. 

Were ever sheets so thoroughly aired or pil- 
lows so deftly encased and patted and put into 
place ? How she enjoyed planning for dinner, 
ordering the marketing, and thoroughly straight- 
ening the few rooms that had accumulated 
‘‘muss” of any sort after yesterday’s hard 
sweeping. 

Then, in the late afternoon, she sat in the 
still room where poor Mamma Lyons slept again, 
after the last sharp aches had become easier to 
bear, and swiftly sent the darning needle on its 
mission in and out of the close-laid threads on 
the boys’ well-worn socks. She was wondering 
if Tom and Howard carried shot in their shoes 
to wear such ghastly holes, when Mamma Lyons 
opened her eyes and groaned feebly. 

“Mamma, are you worse?” And Barbara 
was at her bedside in an instant. 

“ Oh, no, dear, I feel well enough now ; but 
here it is five o’clock or so, nothing on hand for 
the Sunday dinner, no cake made, and the 
house — what must the house look like by this 
time ! ” 

“Not half-bad, mamma. I put the rooms in 


62 


BARBARA’S STRATAGEM 


order while you were sleeping this morning, and 
the boys have been very careful all day not to 
tumble things up. The Sunday marketing is 
all done. As to the cake, I found a new recipe, 
and you have no idea what dainty cake Biddy 
has made from it ; she didn’t know she could 
till she tried it. It was baked nicely by the 
time the bread was ready for the oven, and she 
didn’t hurry much either.” 

Mrs. kyons looked incredulous. Then, as a 
new worry passed through her head, she sighed, 
“ Ah, those sheets. Two of them were torn, and 
by the end of the week the boys will have them 
split from hem to hem.” 

“ Why, mamma ! ” This from Barbara with 
would-be reproach. “ Did you suppose I would 
put torn sheets on the beds ? I mended them 
carefully first. I aired all the bedding too, 
thoroughly, just as you always do on Saturdays, 
and I have mended Teddy’s shirt and have 
nearly all the stockings darned.” 

If Mrs. Lyons was surprised at these state- 
ments she had reason to be more surprised be- 
fore her week’s imprisonment was over; for 
Barbara prepared everything for her departure 
to the springs, besides acting as faithful nurse 
and keeping the house in excellent order. 

“ Don’t kill yourself, dear, while I am gone,” 


BARBARA’S STRATAGEM 63 

were the last words of motherly solicitude as the 
surrey rolled down the road toward the station ; 
and Papa I^yons smiled broadly at Barbara, who 
stood waving them off. 

“ Success to you, housekeeper ; and good-bye,” 
he called. 

“Bless his old heart,” cooed Barbara to the 
gatepost, as the last glint of sunlight on the black 
surrey was lost around a turn in the road. “ He’ll 
keep our secret.” 

It was rather a jolly secret, the boys said, 
when Barbara explained it. 

“ Of course I should break down too, if I did 
all mamma’s work,” she said ; “ and besides, 
she would never consent to my permanently 
dropping my art studies. So papa and I have 
fixed it up, and I’m sure Theresa will be the 
very best sort of a housemaid by the time she 
has had three weeks’ training in mamma’s par- 
ticular methods.” 

Barbara was not far wrong. Theresa was 
willing and strong, and neat as a pin, and it did 
not take her long to remember just how Mrs. 
Lyons wanted the broom handled, the curtains 
cleaned, the dusting done, and the mirrors, win- 
dows, and lamp-chimneys washed. Once in- 
structed, she was faithful in carrying out orders, 
and Barbara confided to Jed privately that she 


64 BARBARA’S STRATAGEM 

believed Theresa could handle the vases and 
ornaments every bit as carefully as the mother 
could. 

When that lady returned, with color in her 
cheeks and a new brightness in her eyes, and 
discoursed with enthusiasm upon the magnificent 
mountain scenery, and the renewed youth of 

Papa I^yons and 
herself, Barbara 
demurely sug- 
gested that she 
occasionally 
take such trips 
without getting 
down to “mus- 
tard plaster un- 
derwear ” first. 

“But, my 
dear, you would 
be broken down 
in health, then. I know how you must have 
worked to keep the house in such immaculate 
order as this.” 

“Oh, no,” carelessly replied Barbara. “I 
have hardly turned my fingers over for a week, 
unless you count making jelly last week — beau- 
tiful jelly too — mamma.” 

While Mrs. Lyons gasped for breath the de- 



BARBARA’S STRATAGEM 65 

lighted children explained what a “regular 
brick” Theresa was, how quietly and thor- 
oughly she did her work, and how mamma 
might give up the position of housemaid at once 
and for good. 

What doubts that mother may have had were 
put to inglorious flight with a few days’ trial of 
the new arrangement, and from that time on the 
boys saucily called her their rejuvenated mamma, 
while Barbara, painting from still life on the 
cool piazza, with Jed reading aloud, was happy 
in the knowledge that dear Mamma Tyons, if 
not one of the group, was equally cool and con- 
tent, reading, writing, or waking the echoes 
with her glorious voice. 


E 


VII 


HOW EDITH GREW CONTENTED 


DITH BlyDRED was unquestionably out 
of sorts. A scowl, the blackest and 
fiercest, sat upon her brow ; and within 
her heart a multitude of angry thoughts 
capered so riotously that they actually hurried 
her along like so many spiteful imps about her 
footsteps. Tucked well under one arm was a 
homely brown parcel, which no one would have 
suspected was the immediate cause of the big 
tears that were slowly welling to Edith’s blue- 
gray eyes. 

“ Like a common butcher boy ! ” the imps 
were kindly suggesting. “ It isn’t enough that 
you must stay home from the lovely concert — 
the only one of the girls not there — but you 
must wear shabby clothes too, and work from 

morning till night, while ” but there her 

thoughts were cut short by the necessity of hur- 
rying yet faster past a group of girls chattering 
an instant on a corner. Pretty, stylish girls they 
66 



HOW EDITH GREW CONTENTED 67 

were, and Edith hoped that her swift dash past 
them in the dusk would be unobserved. 

“ Why, wasn’t that Edith ? ” one merry voice 
called ; but already Edith was far down the 
street. 

“They’ve been to Elizabeth’s lunch party, I 
suppose,” she was saying as she fled. “Of 
course I couldn’t go. I never seem to go any- 
where, or have any of the good times the other 
girls do. Yet I have tried always to be correct, 
at least — a lady, if not a very gay one. And to 
think that while other girls trip about carrying 
their muffs and pretty card-cases, I am sneaking 
home burdened with an uncouth bundle of hor- 
rid, flabby liver ! ” 

At any other time this most tragic climax 
would have sent Edith herself into peals of laugh- 
ter ; but to-night this plebeian liver from a down- 
town butcher’s seemed the last stroke of an un- 
kind fate, and there was nothing funny about it. 
Reaching home, she deposited it quickly upon 
the kitchen table, and escaped to her own room. 
During her absence the boys had evidently re- 
turned from their hunting expedition, for in her 
stove there crackled a cheerful fire whose com- 
forting warmth was gradually creeping to the 
coldest corners of her too airy room. 

“ Too bad I couldn’t have frozen too ! ” she 


68 


HOW EDITH GREW CONTENTED 


exclaimed. “ What is the good of living, any- 
way ? Cold housework all the morning, grind- 
ing in that dreadful school all the afternoon, and 
to what end? That I may starve along and 
pinch and save for bare necessities, and be just 
simply, miserably unhappy. Mamma hasn’t a 
grain of pride, or she couldn’t be singing like a 
jubilant thrush downstairs, when to-morrow 
she’ll have to wear that three-year-old bonnet to 
church. To send me after liver! Nobody car- 
ries parcels these days — great, clumsy thing — 
and when all the world was out calling in its 
best kid gloves I Oh, what’s the use of sup- 
per ” — as the bell tinkled out — “or of anything 
else? I’d like to know. I wish I could just 
stay here dormant, until good times come again.” 

But she went down to supper, nevertheless. 

“ Concert to-night, sis ? ” one of the boys in- 
cautiously asked. 

“ Sis,” generally so ready of speech, made two 
ineffectual attempts to reply, and then left the 
table. 

Mrs. Bldred looked after her regretfully. “ I 
am afraid Edith is really distressed over missing 
this treat to-night. It is hard, for she loves 
music so dearly, and there are so few opportu- 
nities to hear anything really fine in so small a 
place as this.” 


HOW EDITH GREW CONTENTED 69 

“ Why doesn’t she go, then ? ” 

“The seats are a dollar and a half, and she 
absolutely hasn’t the money. Mrs. White hasn’t 
had a very full attendance this year, is hard 
pressed herself, and has not been able to pay her 
teachers either as much or as promptly as usual. 
Edith has to deny herself a good deal.” 

“ I’ve got a dollar and a half. She shall have 
it this blessed minute ! ” declared generous John, 
and with a quick “ Excuse me,” he bolted from 
the room, only to return crestfallen, a few min- 
utes later. 

“ She says it’s too late to get a seat now, or 
find anybody to go with, that I need my money, 
and that she doesn’t want to go anyhow. Girls 
are awfully funny.” 

“ Well, we’ll pop corn to-night. Edith enjoys 
that ; and then she’ll feel better.” 

“ But she isn’t coming down. She said to tell 
mamma she’s not feeling well and is going right 
to bed.” 

“ How unlike Edith 1 ” exclaimed her father 
in some surprise. “ But she will feel all right 
to-morrow, after a good night’s sleep.” 

So the cheery mother hoped also : but the 
sunny morning brought no sunshine to the elder 
sister’s face. Mechanically she did her morning 
duties, and began to dress for church. 


70 HOW EDITH GREW CONTENTED 

“ I am so glad you have your pretty, warm, 
new dress,” her mother said ; and Edith, as she 
donned the gown, felt the first gleam of return- 
ing animation. 

“ How prettily it fits, and how stylish the big 
puffed sleeves look ! Hold my jacket for me, 
mother, please, if you are all ready,” and care- 
fully she thrust her arms into the jacket sleeves, 
or part way in, and then — she stopped dismayed, 
for the “ stylish ” puffs refused to go by any 
method of folding or crushing into the close- 
fitting jacket. With a look of utter consterna- 
tion Edith dropped into the nearest seat. 

“ Oh, Edith, it^s too bad ! ” her mother ex- 
claimed. “The puffs are lined, I suppose, to 
make them stiff — why, what is that on the front 
of your jacket ? ” 

Edith started up, and scrutinized the poor lit- 
tle jacket. “ Nothing but blood ! ” she gasped, 
in a tone that said life could hold no worse 
calamities. “ It must have dripped last night 
from that awful liver, and my only wrap is 
ruined ! But I couldn’t have worn it anyhow. 
Nobody wears those little tight sleeves now-a- 
days. Come on. I’m ready to go.” 

“ But you’ll really catch cold, Edith.” 

“ It can’t more than kill me,” came the mourn- 
ful reply. “ I’ll not miss church, at any rate.” 


HOW EDITH GREW CONTENTED 7 1 

When the unfortunate small brother remarked 
upon the vanity of girls who would “rather 
show off their new duds than be comfortable,’’ 
the martyr grew more martyr-like and freezing, 
and her world more “stale and unprofitable.” 

The good old minister’s sermon that Sunday 
morning was strangely interwoven in Edith’s 
mind with such reflections as, “ Nice time you’ll 
have this winter, with actually not a wrap to 
protect you from the cold,” and “You could 
contrive a way if you just didn’t want to be 
miserable and abused.” 

Miserable and abused she certainly seemed all 
that day, until the very atmosphere about her 
grew cold and foggy. Thicker and thicker her 
clouds had grown, until there wasn’t any sun- 
light anywhere. 

Edith cried herself to sleep that night, and 
wondered if the girls who went to the luncheon 
and the concert would weep and pity her when 
they knew that she had lived her few dreary 
years only to die at last of consumption caught 
while they were wrapping themselves in plush 
and sealskin. 

She was finishing the housework next morn- 
ing when one of these apostrophized maidens 
rang the front door bell. 

“ May Edith come with me down to the 


72 HOW EDITH GREW CONTENTED 

wharf ? ” she heard her asking. “ It’s the most 
pitiful case, Mrs. Bldred, and Edith has so 
much heart and energy and good sense, I know 
she will be the very one to go with me to visit 
these people.” 

Not being in the stylish new gown, Edith 
managed to slip very easily into the despised 
jacket, and the dark spots were forgotten as she 
hurried off with Elizabeth to the river front. 

“We missed you so, Saturday,” Elizabeth 
said fondly ; “ but you’re such a useful, busy 
girl, Edith dear. I’m glad you don’t teach in 
the mornings, or you couldn’t come with me 
here, and we girls who are working ‘ In His 
Name ’ have calls like this which cannot be put 
off.” 

The wind blew cold from the river, and gladly 
enough the two friends hurried into the shelter 
of the great wharf boat. At its farther end a 
sight met Edith’s eyes which she never forgot. 

Upon a pile of straw a gaunt man lay, his 
clothes in rags, his eyes bright with fever. Be- 
side him crouched a woman scantily clad, 
nursing a child whose pitiful cries mingled with 
the moans of the sick man. In the feeble 
warmth of a small stove four little girls huddled, 
the oldest of the group dividing among them a 
hoard of coarse, dry bread. 


HOW EDITH GREW CONTENTED 


73 

The story was simple as it was sad — overflows 
down the river, the loss of the scant harvests of 
a small farm, a starting away for work and bet- 
ter prospects, sickness, and finally this ! 

“ Ef I could on’y git well, er ef the girls wuz 
on’y boys,” the man exclaimed apologetically. 
“They’re nice little girls; an’ peaked though 
they be, you wouldn’t find a prettier bunch o’ 
little girls anywhere. They’re smart too, an’ 



ready to do what they kin ; but they ain’t no 
chance,” and fatherly pride mingled with the 
distress in the poor man’s eyes. 

Edith and Elizabeth asked questions, observed 
closely, found all the needs, and were ready to 
plan all the remedies. 

Edith reached home at eleven, and went 
straight to the big boxes in the attic. “ Three 
castaway skirts — but they’re warm — stockings 
for the barefooted girl, and hoods for the bare- 


74 HOW EDITH GREW CONTENTED 

headed ones. ‘ Ef on’y our boys wuz girls,’ 
there’d be more. I must call on the neighbors. 
Oh, and Dr. West, bless him ! he’ll be ready as 
he always is, with his big heart and his little 
medicine chest, to make the sick man forget he 
ever had an ache.” 

That night after school as Edith, singing a 
merry song, hung her freshly washed jacket be- 
fore the fire, Mrs. Eldred asked half nervously : 

“Will you try to wear it anyway ? ” 

“Why, of course, you dearest mother. It is 
easy enough to cut the stiff lining out of those 
puffs ; then they will go right in. Every stain 
has washed off beautifully. He’s a turner by 
trade, mother, that poor fellow, and Mr. Potter 
says he’ll take him right into the machine works 
as soon as Dr. West gets him cured. We’re go- 
ing to rent the little Dodds cottage for them on 
Tenth street.” 

There was a moment’s pause, and then Edith 
added, as though the thought had just struck 
her : “ Mother, did you ever realize that we are 
the happiest family in the whole world, and the 
most contented ? ” 

Mrs. Eldred only smiled as she said, “ If ever 
you forget it, Edith, try some such remedy as 
you have tried to-day.” 


VIII 


EUGENIA’S SACRIFICE 


AN’T you stop, dearie, and sit with me ? ” 
It was a tremulous old voice, and Eu- 
genia dropped sketch-box and easel, ir- 
resolute. Yet how could she stop? 
It was such a lovely day for sketching, and 
lovely days had been so few since she came to 
South Harbor. There was that delicious bit of 
bluff and wood and sandy beach down by the 
old road to the sea. She had thought of it for 
days, longing for the storms to pass and the sun 
to shine that she might hurry away to catch it 
on her canvas. More than that, there was the 
academy prize, of which she had dreamed, and 
toward which she had struggled for busy 
months. To win that meant fifty shining dol- 
lars — money enough to make the old home in 
Newton blossom like the rose, to get a new win- 
ter wrap for the hard-worked little mother, and 
to furnish the boys all around with new caps 
and mittens for their red little ears and fingers. 

75 



76 


EUGENIA’S SACRIFICE 


Yet that same mother, and those same boys, 
would they bid her go for this happy morning’s 
sketching, when poor old Dame Piton sat in the 
shade of Fisher Ben’s door, her eyes too dim to 
read, and her paralyzed limbs unable to carry 
her to pleasanter places ? 

Propping her box and canvas against the wall, 
she turned to the old lady, saying brightly : 

“ Stop ? Yes. And I’ll unfold my stool and 
sit here just in front of you while we talk.” 

Dame Pitou, lonely old soul, was little given 
to talking, as Eugenia had discovered, but her 
gentle face lighted up at the girl’s hearty tone, 
and grew sunnier with each passing moment. 

Eugenia, watching her, thought of the lost 
sketch down by the sea road, and could not be 
sorry she had missed it. “ Be of all things, first 
unselfish. Sacrifice ! Sacrifice ! ” she said to 
herself, vaguely conscious that she was quoting 
something, and trying to drown the last regret 
at giving up possible fame with that seductive 
bit of sea and beach. Then a bright thought 
struck her. 

“ Dame Pitou,” she exclaimed, eager eyes 
on the placid face, “ let me paint you ! Couldn’t 
you, please? You sit as still as any model, and 
so it would not tire you very much. So serene 
and sweet you look, that I’d call it ‘ Eventide,’ 


EUGENIA’S SACRIFICE 


77 

or ‘Shadow Time,’ or, — no, something sugges- 
tive of sunny old age ; and, oh, it will make my 
fortune ! Dear Dame Pitou, will you, will 
you? ” and Eugenia clasped her hands in a very 
ecstasy of ap- 
peal. 

Dame Pitou 
smiled her 
slow, sweet 
smile. “ I’ve 
been many 
things in my 
time, little 
lady, but 
never a mod- 
el,” she said. 

“Begin when 
you will.” 

“You dear!” 
exclaimed the 
girl grate- 
fully. “ I’ll set up my easel at once. Why did 
I never think of this before ? All the sea roads 
imaginable could not interest me as a study of 
this sort will. You never could guess what dear 
little shadows play over your face, or how soft 
and beautiful the coloring is.” 

Brimful of enthusiasm she set to work, her 



EUGENIA’S SACRIFICE 


78 

porte-crayon dashing in cabalistic lines ; and 
meantime, still anxious to entertain the docile 
model whose solitary life had so often appealed 
to her sympathies, she talked a merry, rippling 
stream, until Dame Pitou, fairly catching the in- 
fection, talked merrily too. 

“We had the happiest kind of a morning,” 
she said to her room-mate and fellow art student, 
in their attic quarters that night. 

“You and that old fossil at Skipper Ben’s ? ” 

“ Why, Julia, how can you say it ? She is as 
warm-hearted as can be ; a real lady too — 
Southern, or French, or something. Strange she 
should have a son like Fisher Ben, such a rough 
sort of fellow ! ” 

Julia laughed incredulously. “You didn’t 
really think her the mother of that canvas- 
covered fisher of the seas ? ” 

“ Why, of course. The children call her 
Grandma Pitou.” 

“ These fisher-children call anybody grand- 
ma,” said Julia, dismissing the subject with a 
shrug. 

And Eugenia wondered a bit, but was too 
well-bred to pry into other folks’ lives, and so 
redoubled her effort to please the poor woman, 
who seemed so pitifully alone in the world. 


EUGENIA’S SACRIFICE 


79 


When, after many mornings of faithful work, 
she dashed her brushes to the ground, and stood 
before the finished likeness, she could only say 
joyfully, “ Dear Dame Pitou, it is your very self ; 
and I love it, love it ! ” 

“ I love the artist better,” Dame Pitou said 
with a courtly little bow, a warm light in her 
pleasant eyes. “ It is what one calls a speaking 
likeness. Exhibit it as you wish, but I buy it 
of you. Is one hundred dollars too little ? ” 

Eugenia started, her palette falling at her side. 
“ Buy it — a hundred dollars ! ” she gasped. 

“ It will be a present for my son. When 
health takes me on another visit, he may have 
me at home too, you see.” 

Eugenia looked for a moment from the sweet 
old face on the canvas to its counterpart before 
her, and burst into tears. 

“Is it too little ? ” Dame Pitou asked, per- 
plexed. 

“ The hundred dollars ? ’’ and Eugenia laughed 
breathlessly through the tears. “It is a whole 
fortune. But, I gave up fifty dollars, I thought 
— and here — why it’s like giving away your last 
dime and turning to find your pocketbook 
crammed. You fairy godmother, what are you 
doing in this rough place without even a pump- 
kin or a crystal slipper to tell the tale ? ” 


So 


EUGENIA’S SACRIFICE 


“ Rough house, I know it is, but as good as 
the place affords ; and this air is like no other, 
my doctor says.” 

“ But where is my sacrifice ? ” Eugenia ques- 
tioned, apparently of herself. 

Dame Pitou’s eyes twinkled as she answered 
softly: “Perhaps it is no greater than mine 
when I pay you this,” drawing the girl down be- 
side her chair and slipping the bank notes into 
her hand. 

Eugenia declared afterward that she never had 
felt so bewildered or so happy as when the acad- 
emy picture, “ At Evensong,” won its first and 
dearest prize from “poor Dame Pitou.” 


IX 


THE GIVER BLESSED 



ELL, I don’t know what we can do 
next,” Bertha Adler exclaimed de- 
spairingly, her dark eyebrows 
drawn together with perplexed 
wrinkles. “We’ve read to her, sung for her, 
and chattered to her by the hour, and yet, though 
she seems as grateful as can be, she isn’t a bit 
happy with it all, as any one with eyes can see.” 

“ The fruits and flowers are no special treat,” 
Emily Perry sighed. “ She is used to luxuries 
of all sorts.” 

“ And even good stories and books must get 
tame when there’s nothing else to amuse, and a 
fellow can’t help herself,” Dot Dillon said so- 
berly. 

The other girls laughed. 

“ ‘ A fellow,’ with a broken ankle-bone isn’t in 
a very nice fix,” one of them assented ; “ and I 
suppose that our best efforts to amuse her must 
sometimes tire her out.” 

F 8l 


82 


THE GIVER BEESSED 


‘‘ Girls ! ” It was Kitty Carroll’s voice this 
time, and a little infection of hopefulness began 
to spread through the group. “ We’ve been fol- 
lowing a beautiful truth in a dreadfully one- 
sided way ; that’s what’s the trouble. We’ve all 
been saying, ‘ It is more blessed to give than to 
receive,’ and have blessed ourselves by shower- 
ing time and oranges and half our pocket-money 
on dear old Blanche. Now suppose we give her 
a chance to win similar blessings, and do a little 
of the giving herself. I don’t suppose it has 
ever occurred to her, lying there, a helpless in- 
valid, day after day.” 

“ Why, what an idea ! What could she give, 
and how?” 

“Innumerable things, and in many ways,” 
Kitty answered brightly. “ Her wrists are not 
broken, you know, if her ankle is. She can 
learn to crochet warm baby sacks for that blue- 
looking little baby of Mrs. Wade’s. She can be 
well propped up with a lap-board before her and 
cut out work for the Saturday sewing-class ; oh, 
there are dozens of little things she can do. One 
will lead to another. Then farewell to boredom 
for invalid Blanche ! ” 

“ What a head you have ! ” Bertha ejaculated 
with such honest admiration that a general laugh 
followed. 


THE GIVER BEESSED 


83 


“But it must not seem a cut-and-dried 
seheme,” Kitty warned. “ The idea must oecur 
to the child herself. Dot and I are going there 
after school. Trust us to manage it.” 

Here a sharp little bell scattered the smiling 
group and sent them to books and classes. 

That evening two maidens entered the sick- 
room, taking with them a breath of fresh Octo- 
ber air, and a sparkle of girlish brightness. 

“ How goes it, patient one ? ” Dot asked, kiss- 
ing the fair cheek of her friend. 

“ Oh, very well, thank you. Every day is a 
day ended, you know.” 

“And you are glad to have them go?” 

“ Why, yes, Kitty, how could it be otherwise ? 
Everybody has to bother with me, and I’m only 
a nuisance to myself.” 

“ Blessed be nuisances ! ” Kitty said laughing. 
“ That was what Rob called himself last night 
when he tried to wind my wool and got into 
such a muss. Boys are so funny, anyway. 
You see, I was in a frantic hurry, for I did want 
to get some crocheting begun, and yet there 
were all my lessons to get. So Rob tried to 
help me out by getting the wool ready.” 

“ Well, he must be more interested in dresser 
mats and hair-pin balls than most brothers ! ” 
Blanche exclaimed, laughing too. 


84 


THE GIVER blessed 


“Oh, but it wasn’t to be hair-pin balls, or 
anything of that sort,” Kitty interrupted eag- 
erly. “ Just comfortable baby sacks for the 
most frozen-up little specimen of humanity you 
ever saw, Mrs. Wade’s baby — such a poor, mis- 
erable baby that Rob’s warm heart quite melted 
over its case ! ” 

Blanche was looking interested. An unwonted 
glow began to creep into her pale cheeks. “ I 
wish I could crochet,” she said. “ Kitty, why 
couldn’t I learn ? I have time enough, goodness 
knows ! If I could make those baby sacks, it 
would warm me more than the baby.” 

“ Well, say now, fellows ” — Dot’s long 
association with six brothers of assorted sizes 
had made her speech shockingly boyish — “ this 
looks like an opening for me. I have absolutely 
nothing to engage my valuable time after school 
hours for days to come. Why can’t I teach you 
to crochet ? ” 

“ Oh, you dear ! You may talk baseball and 
boxing all you please, if you’ll only come.” 

“ Happy I ! ” sighed Dot, with a saucy little 
courtesy toward Blanche. “ I’ll be on hand to- 
morrow then, at four, armed with balls and 
needles. Come, Kitty. If I don’t actually drag 
you off, you’ll be here till that charmed hour to- 
morrow. Don’t you see how dark it’s grow- 


THE GIVER BEESSED 


85 

ing?” and Dot, tugging at her friend’s sleeve, 
blew a shower of little kisses toward the in- 
valid, and in another minute both girls were 
gone. 

When Mrs. Rhea entered the room half an 
hour later she looked in some surprise at the 
sunshiny face of her daughter. “ Did the girls 
bring you something quite new?” she asked 
wonderingly. 

“ Yes’m,” with a soft laugh ; “an idea ! Mam- 
ma, which ought to wear better for a baby, blue 
or brown or gray ? ” 

“W^'ear better? Baby?” and Mrs. Rhea 
looked so dazed that Blanche laughed as she 
had not “ since the siege began.” 

But all that Mrs. Rhea did not know about 
that poor baby of the Widow Wade’s, she learned 
very completely during the next week ; and she 
and Blanche speedily found themselves a small 
co-operative society for the making and distrib- 
uting of crocheted comfort. 

“If,” the mother said, coming in one evening, 
“ all my heart hadn’t been with my caged bird- 
ling here, I should surely have noticed sooner 
the distress of that poor little woman. Posi- 
tively they are half frozen down there. I have 
told papa to order some coal sent right over. 
She can’t refuse it ; she’ll not know whom to re- 


86 


THE GIVER BEESSED 


fuse ; and I’ll take good care she doesn’t suspect 
me. The sacks, I told her, were just an in- 
valid’s pastime, and she took them gratefully. 
I wonder if a crocheted skirt or vest wouldn’t 
be a comfortable thing for 
her to have ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, you blessed 
mamma! I 
can’t wait to 
begin. And 
poor old 
Grandma 
Ashley too. 
Wouldn’t 
a warm, rib- 
bed skirt go 
well over her 
thin knees? 
Why, there is 
no end to it, is 
there?” And 
Blanche fairly hugged her own knee 
1 - under the down coverlet, to vent her 
enthusiasm. 

A fortnight later, Bertha, Kitty, Emily, and 
Dot, were gathered about “ the head of the sup- 
ply department,” as they had dubbed Blanche. 
“ In a week, girls. Dr. Carter says I’ll be up 



THE GIVER BEESSED 


87 


and about ; in another off at school, in the dear 
old paths again. But happy as I am at the 
prospect, I can’t be much more content than I 
have been since ” 

“ Since you were seized with the bright idea 
of setting ankle-bones with crochet-hooks? ” and 
little Dot laughed merrily. 

‘‘ Girls,” said Blanche, for a moment serious, 
“ you have spoiled me till I even dare preach to 
you. If ever you break any of your precious 
necks, and all the gifts of your dearest friends 
fail quite to bring you relief, just try a little 
gift-showering yourself.” 

“In other words,” exclaimed Kitty, “the 
text from which you preach is, that ‘ it is more 
blessed to give than to receive.’ ” 

Then Blanche wondered, though she joined 
with them, why all the girls laughed. 


X 


RUTH’S LESSON 


“ WF these precious steps don’t shine when I 
am done it will not be my fault.” 

Ruth Robbins spoke with emphasis, 
^ her words keeping time with the brisk 
scrub-brush. Presently the splashing of the 
water and the bumping of the brush, stopped long 
enough for the young girl to stand erect, stretch 
her rosy fingers, stiffened from their long hold of 
the rough brush, and look contentedly around. 

How sweet and cool everything appeared in 
the early morning ! The roses were covered 
with dew, the grass all a-sparkle, and the birds 
outdoing themselves in the old apple orchard. 
Half turning she reached to break a sprig of fra- 
grant honeysuckle from the vine beside her, and 
just then she saw coming up the plank walk 
toward the gate, a girl, a pretty young girl in a 
stylish, morning street gown. 

Ruth actually caught her breath, “Louise 
Chadwick ! She is coming here ! ” 

88 


ruth’s ubsson 


89 


Almost overturning the pail of water in her 
haste, Ruth raced to the rear of the house and 
up to her own room, her cheeks red and burning. 
She dashed toward her collar box for a fresh 
collar, began a frantic hunt for her cufE-buttons, 
couldn’t find her new shoes — everything seemed 
misplaced, somehow — and then presently heard 
her mother’s gentle voice calling up the stairs : 

“ Ruth ! Ruth ! Louise wants to see you a 
moment.” 

Ruth finally reached the parlor, her face all 
a-flush, and the perspiration starting from every 
pore. Louise, it seemed to her, had never looked 
so cool and dainty as when, with a quiet apology 
for so early a call, she said : 

“I came really to see your mother, but remem- 
bered a little business I have with you about 
that rose social we are getting up. I shall keep 
you but a moment.” 

It was certainly not many minutes later when 
Ruth, alone in the parlor, sat rocking and crying 
as hard as she could. Mrs. Robbins, looking in, 
gazed in astonishment. 

“ Why, Ruth, daughter, what has gone 
wrong ? ” 

“ Oh, everything ! ” Ruth answered hotly. 
“ I never was so mortified in all my life. This 
old, faded dress, no collar, my old shoes— and 


90 


RUTH’S IvESSON 


scrubbing right out there on the steps where 
she couldn’t have helped seeing me ! It would 
have been bad enough if I had not run away, but 
that made it ten times worse ; for there was the 
horrid old scrub-pail and brush to tell the whole 
story even if she hadn’t seen me, which I know 
she did. I’m so ashamed ! ” 

Mrs. Robbins replied to this stormy outburst 
with no remonstrance, but asked quietly : “ Were 
you ashamed before Louise came ? ” 

“ Before Louise came ? Why, no, what was 
there to be ashamed of then ? ” 

Mrs. Robbins looked amused. “I can’t see, 
daughter,” she said, “how the simple fact of 
Louise’s coming could change the nature of either 
your work or your appearance.” 

“ Oh, mamma, you’re so funny ! You never 
seem to see such things. Why I don’t suppose 
Louise ever worked in her life ! ” 

“ Louise is an intelligent girl, Ruth, and 
whether she ever works or not, her good sense 
would tell her that we, with our large house, 
large family, small means, and one servant, must 
do the home duties or have them undone. You 
did a very silly thing to run from her as though 
she had caught you doing something disgraceful. 
That hurried flight might well mortify you, for 
it could not but lower you a little in the estima- 


ruth’s lesson 


91 

tion of a girl as sweet and refined as Lionise Chad- 
wick. She was compelled to make her call early, 
and naturally expected to find us busy ; but I 
doubt if she expected to have us run from her 
in mad haste, forgetting hospitality, and making 
her feel like an unwelcome intruder.” 

With this rebuke kindly spoken, Mrs. Robbins 
started to the door, but turned to add quietly : 
“ True refinement has in it no mixture of false 
pride. Remember that, Ruth.” 

Ruth seemed unable just then to remember 
anything but her hot cheeks and faded dress, and 
the telltale scrub-bucket. She went out pres- 
ently to finish the steps and “get the horrid old 
things out of sight.” 

How different everything looked ! The roses 
were common things, very unlike the rare Bon 
Silenes and Meteors in the Chadwick conserva- 
tory. The’ grass was uneven and rough; there 
was no landscape-gardener here to keep it smooth 
as plush. The birds in the orchard made her 
head ache. 

Discontentedly enough she finished the homely 
task, taking no pleasure in her work, though the 
old steps did shine as she had predicted, and the 
shadows of the vines covered them with clean 
lace work. “ It’s all well enough to talk about 
sweet refinement and hospitality. I guess if I 


92 


ruth’s uesson 


could sit at home in a pretty tea gown, read 
charming stories and do dainty sewing, I could 
always feel ready to welcome my guests too. 
Mamma may talk all she pleases, but work, this 
sort of rough work, must seem to a girl like 
Ivouise, downright degradation.” 

Ruth was not a very pleasant addition to either 
dinner or tea table that bright May day. Hattie 
and Carrie, Willard and John, were all unusually 
merry, and perhaps hardly noticed how she sat 
silent and dull through each meal. 

It was cool evening when Mrs. Robbins called 
Ruth to a chair on the old porch, and Ruth, not 
too smilingly, obeyed her summons, thinking 
that in all her seventeen years she had never 
spent so sullen a day. But somehow she couldn’t 
forget the bitter feeling it had given her to have 
Louise, cool, dainty, leisurely, see her in her work- 
dress scrubbing the front steps like any ordinary 
servant. She felt quite sure Louise thought it 
coarse, humiliating work, and she longed to 
somehow impress upon her the fact that she, 
Ruth Robbins, was just as intellectual, as refined, 
as 

“Ruth,” said Mrs. Robbins, interrupting the 
train of tumultuous thought, “ you have not 
asked why Louise came to see me this morning. 
Before you came down, we had a little talk over 


RUTH’S UKSSON 


93 


a matter wliich we had discussed several times 
already. I thought perhaps I would better not 
mention it to you till it was all settled. How 
would you like a trip to I^ake Minnetonka with 
Mrs. Chadwick and the girls.” 

Ruth, half breathless, exclaimed incredulously : 

Minnetonka ! I with the Chadwicks ? Why, 
mamma, how, how could I possibly? What 
about the money ? ” 

“ That is what I waited to have settled before 
telling you. I was wondering how it could be 
managed when one day Aunt Mary came in with 
a beautiful necklace which she meant to give you 
for your birthday. After I had put it awa}^ for 
safe keeping, I was telling her about Mrs. Chad- 
wick’s kind invitation to you, and how eager the 
girls were to have you go. Touise and Mamie 
and Jo all like you, Ruth, and I think would 
enjoy having you with them. Well, Aunt Mary 
looked sober for a minute. ‘ Seems too bad the 
child can’t have the trip. She has never been 
farther away than Hillsdale, and has never seen 
a lake in her life, much as she loves water. Now 
if only I could draw my next interest sooner, but 

it isn’t due until ’ Then she stopped as 

though struck with a new thought, and ex- 
claimed, ‘ Taura, the child doesn’t care much for 
jewelry anyway. That is what I can do, I can 


94 


ruth’s uesson 


make an exchange. I will take back this neck- 
lace and give her a round trip ticket to the lake 
instead.’ And so she managed it. Mr. Garland 
the jeweler, refunded the money for the neck- 
lace. He didn’t object to doing it, for Aunt Mary 
will buy it again as soon as she draws her 
next interest, and give it to Cousin I^ou. I knew 
you would rather have the trip. 

Ruth fairly screamed, clapping her hands and 
hugging her mother in an ecstasy of delight. 
“ How good Aunt Mary is ! And how lovely to 
have one rich relative ! ” 

If Ruth had one dissatisfied thought during 
the week that followed, as she remodeled her last 
summer’s dresses and mentally compared them 
with the fresh ones the Chadwick girls would 
wear, she didn’t breathe that thought aloud ; and 
no happier girl could have been found than she, 
when on the very first day of June she started 
with the gay party for Rake Minnetonka. 

It did seem a little hard, in spite of the gay 
prospect, to say good-bye to the dear old house 
and the home folks in it, but she consoled her- 
self with the thought of the breezy letters she 
could write them, of the funny sketches she 
should make, and of the stories she could tell all 
winter long about her novel experiences in the 
far-away North. 


ruth’s lesson 


95 


She had no idea just how novel they were 
going to prove. She had, of course, expected 
the rowing and bathing and sailing, and the 
general good time ; but what she had not ex- 
pected was to hear Mrs. Chadwick say, as she 
did the very morning after their arrival at the 
cottage on the lake shore — Ruth wondered at 
their calling that elegant big house a cottage — 
“ Now, girls, we will manage just as we did last 
year. Theresa will cook, and we will ” 

“ Make things hum,” Jo exclaimed, laughing. 
Immediately the whole family set to work with 
a vim. kouise and Mamie rushed to the upper 
bedrooms where they could be heard hurrying 
to and fro, making beds and straightening things 
generally. Jo, disappearing, returned with a 
broom to sweep the lower rooms, and Mrs. Chad- 
wick set about the unpacking, at which the girls 
were to assist later. 

“ What am I to do ? ” asked Ruth, feeling as 
though she had fallen into a revolution. 

“If you’ll be a good little girl I’ll let you 
dust,” said Jo with a matronly air. “ Your time 
will come. I’m nearly done with this room now. 
As soon as the breeze dies down you may stir it 
up again. Here is the duster, and here is a cloth 
for the corners. I’ll head the procession from 
room to room. I will be the band-wagon, and 


RUTH’S LESSON 


96 

you may be the little boy at the end who waves 
his hat — only yon will wave the dnst-cloth.” 

They made light of it, but Ruth saw that the 
work was well done, nevertheless, and that they 
were not inexperienced workers. 

The rooms, once thoroughly aired, were at- 
tacked spiritedly and left 
neat as new pins, even to 
the flowers in the 
vases and the folds 
of the light Madras 
curtains. There was 
plenty of time for 
boating, fishing, and 
swimming, and for 
long delightful 
tramps through the woods ; but 
the morning’s work was done con- 
scientiously first, and without their 
seeming for an instant to consider 
it a hardship or a work to be ashamed of. 
Ruth mused over it a good deal. “ After all, 
though,” she thought, “ this is not really a test. 
Mamma says no work can lower people unless 
they feel themselves lowered by it. Now I never 
felt myself degraded by my work when I just 
did it before the inmates of my own home. 
Perhaps if some of their ‘ swell ’ friends should 



ruth’s uesson 


97 


drop in upon them while they are doing such 
work, they would feel as I did the day Louise 
called.” 

It happened that the very next day the “ real 
test,” as Ruth called it, came. 

It was Friday morning, and sweeping day at 
the cottage. All the windows were open wide. 
Mamie, with a dust-cap on her head, was swing- 
ing a great rug so hard that her face was aglow 
with her exertion, and Louise, in the next room, 
was on her knees washing the tiled hearth. 
Ruth, from her position in the hall, whither she 
was moving the drawing-room furniture, could 
see, coming up from the little dock, young Mr. 
Leigh and his cousin. Miss Burton, two of the 
most particularly elegant young people whom 
they had met that summer. Then she saw 
Mamie suspend the rug-shaking long enough to 
nod brightly to them, and finishing it by the 
time they reached the house, run down and greet 
them warmly without a thought of her dust-cap 
or the perspiration bedewing her features. 

“ This is a busy day for us, you see,” she said 
smilingly. “ Let me get you fans, and then, if 
you’ll just sit here on the piazza in the cool, we’ll 
redouble our efforts and join you in a little 
while. You’ll spend the morning ? We are so 
glad to have you.” 

G 


98 


ruth’s uksson 


The other girls too, took time occasionally to 
send a merry word to the piazza ; and when the 
work was all done they joined the two waiting 
there as serenely as though they, the daughters 
of a multi-millionaire, had not been ‘‘caught 
doing menial’s work.” 

“ I felt like helping,” Miss Burton said smil- 
ing, “but Ned would have insisted upon going 
too, and he would have been a nuisance.” 

Ruth did some serious thinking that day, and 
at night had a long girl-talk with Louise after 
the lights were out, telling her just how good a 
lesson she had learned, and why she needed it. 

“ I remember the May morning you speak of, 
Ruth,” Louise returned, “ and when you dashed 
off and left your pail on the front steps, it gave 
me a real sorry feeling. I hope you don’t think 
now that I could love you any less for seeing you 
scrub the porch steps in a calico gown. It is 
not what we do — a girl’s a girl for a’ that — but 
it’s the spirit with which we do it. I defy any 
combination of circumstances, or of soap and 
water, broom or stew-pan, to make me any less a 
real lady. Nothing can disgrace us that is hon- 
est, unless we insist it shall. And Ruth ” — in a 
lower tone — “ there is another thought that will 
glorify any work, whatever it may be. I learned 
it from the Good Book long ago, and as long as 


ruth’s lesson 


99 


I remember it there is never any danger that I 
shall work in the wrong spirit : ‘ And whatsoever 
ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the 
Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father 
by him.’ That surely refers to little, homely 
duties as well as to grand and lofty ones.” 

“ Oh, Louise,” said Ruth, pressing for an in- 
stant the hand of her friend, “ how little I knew 
you ! and how glad I am that now I know you 
well enough to try to be more like you, and to 
learn to work as you do ‘ In His Name.’ ” 


XI 


HOW MISS ELIZABETH FOUND 
HAPPINESS 


Bessie Carter received that invita- 
lW|i| tion from her mother’s old friend, 
wWw Elizabeth Duncan, she held it high 
above her head and called jubilantly : 
“ Girls, girls, its the chance of my life ! She 
has the dearest old home in the quaintest old 
city, and her rooms are overflowing with my pet 
mania and hers, china, the rarest and oldest and 
loveliest ! I shall come back with my note- 
book crammed ; and next year, instead of paint- 
ing endless orchids in the most modern way, 
we’ll do such Wedgwood and Doulton as our 
grandmothers treasured. Oh, it seems too good 
to be true, and I am wildly happy ! ” 

Yet the Bessie Carter speeding to Arrbourne 
on that June day two weeks later, had lines of 
thought lengthening her rosy face ; the laughing 
mouth was sobered, and in the frank gray eyes 
there shone a mist that was near to tears. 


lOO 


HOW MISS EUZABBTH FOUND HAPPINESS lOI 

Sitting there in the cool rattan chair, a breeze 
from freshly wet meadows blowing through the 
car, her mind went back to the stifling heat of 
the vile alley of the city where, at noon that 
day, she had threaded her suffocated way with 
pretty Isabel Talman. She had stood on the 
steps of the School of Design, after telling the 
girls good-bye, when Isabel passed, her arms 
laden with a curious assortment of battered toys, 
and a bunch of fast-fading flowers. 

“ In the name of the comical, my pretty maid, 
where are you going thus arrayed?” she had 
asked gayly. 

But Isabel did not laugh. “ I have heard of 
such a pitiful case in Cook Alley,” she said. 
“ I don’t know just what it is or how much can 
be done — a child-invalid, the doctor said — and 
I’m going over there now to find out what I can 
of his needs. In the meantime the toys may 
amuse him, poor thing ! and the flowers too, al- 
though they are nearly cooked.” 

Moved by some impulse, Bessie fell into step 
with the older girl. “ You are always doing 
something kind and good,” she said impetu- 
ously. “ ket me go with you. My train doesn’t 
leave until four, and I have not a thing to do.” 

She lifted a box from her friend’s arm as 
she spoke, and slipped into the shade of her 


102 HOW MISS EUZABETH FOUND HAPPINESS 

friendly umbrella. Half an hour later the two 
girls found themselves in a room upon the thresh- 
old of which Bessie paused aghast, so damp, so 
foul-smelling, so reeking with filth it was. 

“Where is the sick child?” Isabel asked of 
a drowsing, drunken heap in the corner. 

There was no reply until, from a mass of rags 
almost under foot, a tired little voice said faintly : 

“ It’s me’s the sick un, missis. Harm, she’s 
sleepin’.” 

There the “sick un” lay, a pale and twisted 
midget with the form of a child of six and a 
face aged by suffering. Isabel bent for an in- 
stant over the pitiful thing, and then raised two 
flashing, tear-wet eyes to Bessie. 

“I could hate Dr. Kent,” she said, her soft 
voice fierce with indignation. “ Why isn’t this 
tortured, racked little mortal in a hospital where 
he can be properly cared for ? Dr. Kent has . 
been cruelly neglectful.” 

“ Please ’m,” the child protested, “ it ain’t Dr. 
Kent’s fault, ’deed it ain’t. He’s been good to 
me, that doctor has. He did put me there, 
me’n’ a lot of other fellers with hip disease, an’ 
they kep’ me there three weeks. I tell you they 
ain’t any place like a horspital fer bein’ that 
res’ful and clean an’ makin’ you feel like you 
was somebody else, all new an’ made-over.” 


HOW MISS ElylZABETH FOUND HAPPINESS IO3 

‘‘But why aren’t you there yet?” Miss Tal- 
man asked quickly. 

The expression of the little old face settled 
from momentary animation into patient wretched- 
ness again. 

“There was other fellers could be cured,” he 
said simply. “ They done all they could fer me, 
an’ ’twarn’t no use. So I had to make way.” 

Bessie was in a sort of daze the rest of that 
visit. In all her busy, happy life she had come 
across nothing so hopeless, so awful as this. 
The memory of that pitiful figure, the appealing 
sadness of those great, pained eyes, changed all 
the peaceful Arrbourne landscape when, in the 
golden haze of a quiet sunset, she stepped from 
the station platform into Miss Duncan’s roomy 
old carriage, and went bowling easily along the 
smooth and shaded drive. 

It was later, after days in which together they 
had admired and talked over the wonderful cups 
and trays and vases, that there began to dawn 
upon Bessie a feeling that all was not well with 
Miss Elizabeth. There was a restlessness about 
her which her namesake had never seen before. 
Generally brisk and independent, she had devel- 
oped of late a feverish unrest that occasionally 
found vent in bursts of petulance, or gave way 
to sudden moods of dull despondency. 


104 HOW MISS EUZABBTH FOUND HAPPINESS 

“ I’m sick of living,” she said wearily one 
sunny morning, depositing upon the table with 
nervous haste the tall, quaint water-jug whose 
odd design she had just been displaying. 

“ Why, Miss Elizabeth ! ” the girl exclaimed, 
shocked and startled. “You can’t mean that ! ” 
and her eyes turned from the listless figure to 
the open window, beyond which stretched the 
broad acres owned by this solitary spinster. 

There was the well-kept lawn from which 
sounded the click and whirr of the busy grass- 
cutter ; there were the gardens where bees droned 
over riotous roses, and where, from beds of 
mignonette and flaming nasturtiums, soft breezes 
bore delicious odors into the handsome rooms. 

To Bessie, for whom life had held few luxu- 
ries, the leisure, the delights of Arrbourne, seemed 
in themselves enough to make life joyfully well 
worth living. Yet she remembered hearing 
Martha, the keen old housekeeper, say, “ Miss 
’Eizabeth never’ll be happy till she thinks more 
o’ some one else than she does o’ herself.” 

Was Miss Elizabeth selfish ? And could it be 
that having given all her life to the following 
out of her own desires, the swelling of her own 
bank-account and the increasing of her own 
lands and property, she was after all poor in 
happiness and real content ? 


HOW MISS EUZABETH FOUND HAPPINESS I05 

With unconscious intentness Bessie studied the 
wrinkled old face, noting for the first time the 
character of the marks forming about the mouth 
and eyes, the gradual changing of its once gentle 
expression to settled hardness and severity. 
And then a thought took possession of her so 
suddenly that it leaped half-formed into words. 

“ That child — oh. Miss Elizabeth, if you only 
could ! ” 

“ Could what ? ” asked Miss Elizabeth sharply. 

The girl flushed, realizing how abrupt she 
had been. But her wish was none the less fer- 
vent when she began warmly : “I wish you 
could have seen what I saw the day I came to 
Arrbourne. You never could have dared com- 
plain of life if you’d seen the real misery of it 
endured by that tortured little' soul in Cook 
Alley.” 

Miss Elizabeth looked interested. “What 
about it?” she asked. 

Then Bessie told the story. 

It was hot a long story, but the tremble in the 
girlish voice, the mist in the gray eyes, made it 
a very real and eloquent one. “And Miss 
Elizabeth,” she concluded, “a scant hundred 
dollars a year would keep that wretched little 
mass of filth and suffering in a hospital where 
he would be clean and cared for.” 


Io6 HOW MISS EIvIZABETH FOUND HAPPINESS 

“ I have a good many hundreds a year,” said 
Miss Elizabeth slowly. “ Suppose we go into 
the city in the morning and look up the Cook 
Alley case.” 

Bessie’s heart gave a great throb. 

“Oh, Miss Elizabeth ! ” she said ; and though 
the lines about Miss Elizabeth’s mouth had re- 
laxed but slightly, she hoped with all her soul 
that the pitiful case of that small incurable 
might do its own pleading. 

It was nine o’clock of a scorching day when 
the two Elizabeths picked their way through 
the malodorous alley. The filth of ages seemed 
to exhale in the steam that rose stifling from the 
cracks in the battered pavement. Wan and 
wretched-looking children sat listlessly in door- 
ways or roused themselves long enough to in- 
dulge in fierce, momentary squabbles. Bessie 
hurried along to the dilapidated doorway she re- 
membered, and Miss Elizabeth, choked by the 
foul air, stepped gingerly after her. 

In the dingy room there was little change. 
The drunken heap of the first visit sat, a stage 
less drunken, before a table eating a late break- 
fast whose coarseness turned Miss Elizabeth 
faint. Swarms of sticky flies, routed from this 
revolting meal by the flabby hand of the woman, 
settled upon the moaning little wretch upon the 


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HOW MISS EIvIZABETH FOUND HAPPINESS I07 

floor. Miss ElizabetH looked from one to the 
other, and held to the doorframe for support. 

“You awful — thing ! she ejaculated aghast. 

“ Is that your child ? ” 

“ ’T wouldn’t be if I could help it — ^groanin’ 
brat ! ” answered the woman. 

Miss Elizabeth gave a gasp. Speech seemed 
to have deserted her. She looked, as if held by 
a sort of fascination, at the large and feverishly 
bright eyes of the child at her feet. 

“I’m going to take him,” she said at last in a 
breathless kind of way. “No law would let 
you keep him.” 

“No more do I want him,” retorted the 
woman. “ Take him an’ welcome ; he’ll die in 
a few weeks if luck’s good.” 

Miss Elizabeth clenched her hands until 
every little yellow knuckle stood out wrathfully. 

“ Run for a cab, Bessie,” she clicked, through 
her set teeth. “I’ll watch the child till you get 
back; but hurry.” 

Bessie did. In an incredibly short time she 
was back with a carriage and they were rolling 
away, the wide-eyed child lying at full length on 
a seat, his matted head resting on Miss Eliza- 
beth’s knee. 

“ Shall you go to the Children’s Hospital ? ” 
Bessie asked. 


I 08 HOW MISS EUZABETH FOUND HAPPINESS 

“I shall go there to inquire for a trained 
nurse; but the child I mean to take home.” 

Bessie stared blankly. This passed her wild- 
est hopes. She was in a delightful flutter of 
excited solicitude all the while they transferred 
their little charge safely from cab to railroad 
car, and then into Miss Elizabeth’s own carriage, 
and away through the cool shadows of the elm 
trees to the great house at Arrbourne ; and no 
dainty product of her particular art had ever 
engrossed her as did the changing of this loath- 
some little creature, pathetic and helpless, into 
something that was wholesome and sweet. 

During the process Tim — for that was the 
name he had given — looked from one to the 
other of his rescuers with the speechless grati- 
tude of some wounded animal, save that now 
and again a deep-drawn “ Thankee, ma’am,” 
came from the depths of his satisfied soul. 

Miss Elizabeth bustled about like a solicitous 
mother bird, excited and cheery. “You shall 
have a dish of fresh fruit and a bowl of milk 
toast,” she said smiling. “ We must see if we 
can’t get some life into that starved little body 
of yours.” 

The child turned bright, adoring eyes upon 
her. He looked almost pretty, his flushed cheek 
against the white pillow. 


HOW MISS EI.IZABETH FOUND HAPPINESS IO9 

“We fellers thought the horspital was the 
bes’ place anywheres,” he said, “ but. Miss 
’lyizbeth, I think heaven must be like this yere 
place,” and he drew a long breath of perfect 
content, his eyes on the far-away fields and the 
sunny gardens. Then the old, patient sadness 
crept into his face. “ Do I have to go back when 
my time’s up ? ” he asked. 

“You’re going to stay here as long as you 
live,” said Miss Elizabeth softly; and she 
swallowed something absurdly hard in her 
throat as she started quite suddenly for the 
dining room. 

“ Miss ’Eizbeth ain’t been so happy in ten 
years,” said Martha to Bessie half an hour later; 
and then she stood mute to see little twisted 
Tim, his face radiant with happiness, eating 
milk toast from Miss Elizabeth’s daintiest Dres- 
den bowl. 


XII 


JULIA’S HOME MISSION 


pELL, Julia, she is 
simply fascinat- 
ing!” 

“Isn’t she, 
though ! ” Julia ex- 
claimed in answer, 
her dark head nod- 
ding eulogies. “ She 
is quick as a flash, 
breezy and bright, 
and she sings and 
plays just be-au-ti- 
fully!” 

The last word was smothered to a 
whisper, for the object of Julia’s en- 
thusiasm returned, bearing a dainty tray of fruit 
and cake. 

She was a charming little creature, indeed, 
with dancing blue eyes and saucy blonde curls 
nodding airily over her graceful head. And it 



JULIA’S HOME MISSION 


III 


needed but this evidence of her thoughtfulness 
to completely capture her girl callers; for, as 
Blanche said afterward, “ If there is anything 
that wins my heart on a scorching August day, 
it is icy cold oranges and fluffy sponge cake.” 

So they chattered away, blithe as birds, and 
laughing little bird-trills over the droll songs 
Nell sang to the thumping of her silver-mounted 
banjo. 

Julia told the family about her new acquaint- 
ance that night at the tea table. 

“ She is a cute little trick,” Sam said, smiling. 
“ I see her down town pretty often, and she looks 
so rosy and bright that it’s a real treat just to 
look at her.” 

“ Well, for my part,” said Hugh bluntly, “ I 
always feel sort o’ skittish about these butterfly 
girls who spend such a precious lot of time on 
the street.” 

“Oh, you big young sifter-of-men-and-things, 
don’t moralize over pretty Nell Wayne, now. 
She is all right — not to speak slangily either. 
She’s just a little sunbeam, that’s what she is, 
and I hope she’ll shine around this habitation 
frequently. They are not very rich, I fancy, and 
I am glad I can make it pleasant for her. She is 
as sweet and dainty as can be, but they live in 
that tiny cottage down Elm Street, just she and 


1 12 JULIA’S HOME MISSION 

her mother and younger sister, for they have no 
father.” 

“Well here, sis, suppose you cut the biography 
short and pass the rolls,” said Sam. “I’m more 
interested in supper just now than I am in pretty 
girls. If your sunbeam isn’t good gold I’ll trust 
the mother bird and the owl here to find it out, 
and rescue yon and your affections from any un- 
fortunate attachment.” 

But the sunbeam really seemed to prove 
“ good gold,” and to grow more charming daily. 
One night, after a sparkling visit from her, 
during which she had seemed more winsome 
and lovable than ever, Mrs. Kessler was moved 
to ask, “ Is her mother as vivacious as she? ” 

Julia opened her mouth and closed it again. 
For a minute the power of speech seemed to 
have deserted her. Mrs. Kessler waited in some 
surprise for the answer which came slowly when 
it did come. 

“Why, mother, I’ve never even seen Mrs. 
Wayne. The worst of it is that it never occurred 
to me before that I hadn’t. Nell always makes 
the time so full of sparkle that I hadn’t missed 
the greater light — as, of course, the mother 
must be,” with a smile at the little woman who 
was certainly “ the greater light ” in the Kessler 
household. 


juua’s home mission 1 13 

The next afternoon at Nell’s, Julia took 
occasion to ask, “ Where is your mamma, dear ? 
Do you know I have never met her ? ” 

Nell laughed carelessly. “ Oh, mamma’s 
about the house some place. I’ll call her pres- 
ently.” 

But she didn’t, and Julia supposed she had 
forgotten it. At the gate, in the semi-dusk, she 
ran against a little, faded-looking person who 
was hurrying around the side way with a pitcher 
of milk. “ I beg your pardon,” she stammered ; 
and the little body replied also, with stress upon 
the your, “ I beg your pardon,” and in a mo- 
ment had disappeared in the kitchen door. 

“ Well, I wonder who on earth that was,” 
Julia soliloquized, and then forgot all about it 
until, at tea, a speech of sturdy Hugh’s sent a 
sudden stab of conviction to her heart. She 
was repeating one of Nell’s bright sallies when 
Hugh interrupted in his uncompromisingly 
honest fashion : 

“ I’ll tell you why I don’t like that pretty little 
kitten friend of yours ; because she hasn’t any 
more conscience than the soulless creatures we 
liken her to. I couldn’t forgive even a butterfly 
that kept its mother a grub.” 

“Why, Hugh Kessler, what can you mean?” 

“Just what I say, sister mine. She frisks 

H 


juua’s home mission 


II4 

about town in her charmingly simple gowns and 
sunshiny smiles while her wornout little mother 
sews night and day to feed and clothe the family. 
Have you ever seen her do one useful thing? 
Answer me that, Julia, honor bright.’’ 

But Julia had left the table in tears. Hugh 
never made statements he couldn’t prove, and 
the blow was too crushing and sudden. Mrs. 
Kessler found her in her room an hour later, her 
eyes red from crying. 

“To think how I loved that girl ! ” she wailed. 
“Why, mother, she must be utterly unprin- 
cipled.” 

“ Don’t be hasty, little Castor. Pollux may 
be only thoughtless. Perhaps she is savable, 
yet.” 

Julia’s eyes flashed. “Well, her mother 
ought to be, anyway. I’m going there to-mor- 
row, and I’m going to see her mother or die 
trying. And she shall know what I think of 
that sort of girl too. Oh, mamma, how can she 
frolic and sing, with her poor little mother slav- 
ing at a machine through the long, hot days? 
I’d no idea they were as poor as that. Tet’s do 
something, mamma. Let’s get up a boating 
party, an informal one, and invite them all, and 
see if Miss Nell can keep her tired little mother 
hidden then.” 


JULIA’S HOME MISSION II5 

“ There, there, Julia, cool down a trifle. You 
look quite fiery. But the idea really isn’t a bad 
one ; and I think I’ll call with you to-morrow, as 
I ought to have done long ago.” 

So it happened that the next afternoon Nell 
Wayne, airily twanging her banjo in the little 
parlor, was surprised to see Mrs. Kessler coming 
up the walk with Julia. 

“Mamma in? Why ye-es. I’ll call her.” 

In another moment the bent little body whom 
Julia had met in the twilight, hurried in, a half- 
frightened look on her face, and needles and 
pins of assorted sizes on the front of her rusty 
black gown. 

“You poor little starved creature ! ” Julia was 
commenting inwardly. “ To think of my eating 
iced oranges that your poor, pricked fingers had 
earned ! ” 

But Mrs. Kessler was talking in her own 
sweet, sensible way, and gradually chasing some 
of the tired lines from the worn dressmaker’s 
face. 

Pretty Nell’s roses were uncomfortably red 
when she heard the invitation for the following 
afternoon, and redder still when the mother, 
with a little gasp of astonishment, said : 

“ Oh, how I should enjoy it ! I used to love 
the water when I was a girl, but I haven’t even 


Il6 JULIA’S HOME MISSION 

seen it now for months. I don’t seem to have 
the time. If only I could go to-morrow — 
but ” 

“ But what ? ” Mrs. Kessler smiled. 

“ There is Mrs. Miller’s dress to finish, and it 
will take every minute until dark to-morrow.” 

Then it was Julia’s turn to vent some of her 
long-pent indignation, and she did it with an as- 
sumption of sweet unconsciousness that would 
have convulsed her fun-loving brothers. 

“ Oh, my dear Mrs. Wayne, I’m sure that ex- 
cuse won’t hold a minute. Nell is so quick at 
anything ; she can rush it through for you, I 
know.” 

Mrs. Wayne looked at her daughter in a dazed 
way, and there was dead silence until Nell her- 
self said with a queer snap in her voice : 

“ Why, yes ; there will be no trouble about the 
dress. Mamma can go, of course. We’ll all en- 
joy it immensely.” 

The dress actually was finished somehow, and 
the Wayne family made up part of the happy 
party of the next afternoon. One had only to 
look at the face and figure of the tired little 
woman in black, to know that she, for one, cer- 
tainly was “ enjoying it immensely,” as her 
daughter had predicted. She seemed to freshen 
as a thirsty blossom might have done in the cool, 


juua’s home mission 1 17 

sweet air ; and the frolicsome breezes and the 
plunge of the waves brought such color and life 
and sparkle to her face, that Julia could hardly 
believe her the careworn creature of the day be- 
fore. Julia, meantime, was doing, as she after- 
ward affirmed, “more missionary work to the 
square inch,” than she had ever accomplished in 
all her years of service as president of the 
Young Ladies’ Mission Society. 

“ Mamma,” she said months afterward, “ that 
is one solid comfort about working with home 
heathen. You know just when you have them. 
You were right about Nell ; it was as much lack 
of thought as lack of principle, and now she is 
such a sweet, solid, helpful girl, that I am sure 
no one could ever accuse her of doing the kit- 
tenish r61e, or of eating iced fruits in a cool par- 
lor while her tired little mother snipped dresses 
all day in a stuffy back room.” 


XIII 


WHAT KITTY FOUND 


^ELIv, I failed to 
find her!” Kitty 
Somers ex- 
claimed, flutter- 
ing in like some 
bright-plumed 
bird, and bringing 
a breath of the 
March wind with 
her. 

“Find what?” 
Judge Somers 
asked, looking up 
smiling, his gold- 
rimmed glasses 
dotting the point at which he had 
stopped reading. 

Mrs. Somers too, glanced up from her sewing, 
and Anne turned from the sonata she had been 
practising, to hear what Kitty had to tell. 

ii8 



WHAT KITTY FOUND 


II9 

Kitty meanwhile had dropped into a chair 
and was leisurely drawing off her long, hand- 
some gloves, ready for a comfortable recital. 

“‘Find what,’ papa dear? Why, the sweet, 
self-sacrificing family bread-winner, who stands 
pale and tired all day behind a dreary counter, 
and goes home at night to an invalid mother 
and seven small sisters whose sole support she 
is.” 

Judge Somers laughed. Kitty’s drollery, her 
little egotisms, her habit of broadly generalizing 
all things, great and small, rather amused him, 
and he was nothing loth to draw her on. 

“ Do you mean to tell me you have actually 
been hunting the heroine of the story papers?” 

“ That I have, papa-judge, and I trust that if 
she exists, she is no more tired than I, after her 
day’s exertion.” 

“How did you go about it?” Cousin Ruth 
asked, stepping across from the library where 
she had been apparently absorbed in her book. 

“ Well, pretty much as I’d go about hunting 
a nice quality of lace or linen ” 

“And that,” interrupted Anne, “would be 
by sailing in with your aristocratic little nose 
turned high above such paltry things as lace or 
linen counters, and by saying loftily, ‘ So much 
of your finest so-and-so.’ ” 


120 


WHAT KITTY FOUND 


“Nonsense!’^ Kitty retorted. “As I began 
to say, I engaged in the chase with only my 
keen observation and wary catechising to help 
me out.” 

“ I’d have liked to see you. I can picture 
you demanding sternly, ‘Do you buy all your 
mother’s clothes and pay the doctor’s bill for a 
crippled brother ? ’ or ‘ Did you go without 
underwear all winter that your poor old grand- 
father might have a new coat ? ’ ” 

“ Now, see here, Anne, I’ll have no light treat- 
ment of this serious subject. You know I have 
too much tact to ask any such idiotic questions. 
No, my object was veiled. The pursued sup- 
posed in each case that I had come to hunt a 
certain impossible shade of China silk.” 

Here Kitty laughed so ruefully that there fol- 
lowed a chorus of “ Well, what’s the fun? ” 

“ The not-at-all funny part was that I secured 
the impossible (?) shade to my utter astonish- 
ment, and then had to buy it or look like a 
goose.” 

“That was a case of the catcher caught,” 
Anne said, laughing. “ Let us see the purchase. 
You qught to be glad you have something to 
show for your day’s work,” and then as Kitty 
unfurled a cloud of diaphanous silk, she ex- 
claimed delightedly : “ Oh, Kitty, it is what I 


WHAT KITTY FOUND 


I2I 


have been pining for to drape my white-and- 
gold shelf. Sell out to me, will you? What 
did it cost ? ” 

“ Seventy a yard.” 

“ Only seventy cents ? How much have you 
there? Two yards? But, Kitty, I need four.” 

“ Well, dear, don’t look so distressed. I’ll go 
down Monday after school and get you the rest. 
I know the very counter at which I bought it.” 

Then as the tea-bell tinkled, shop-girls and 
silk were forgotten, and to Cousin Ruth’s serious 
question, “ What manner of girls did you find ? ” 
Kitty only answered abstractedly, “ Giddy things 
who talked slang across the aisles to each other 
and forgot what I had asked for.” 

On Monday afternoon Kitty was back at a 
down-town silk counter asking one of the “ giddy 
things” for “goods to match this.” 

“ Yes’m ; a dollar a yard. How much ? ” 

“ Two yards only. A dollar a yard, did you 
say ? Isn’t this the same as the silk I bought 
Saturday at seventy cents ? ” 

The slender shop-girl, about Kitty’s own age, 
looked at her a moment scrutinizingly. “ Yes’m, 
now I remember that you are the same lady. I 
am very sorry. It was my mistake. See, I’ll 
show you the mark on the board. I got it mixed 
in my mind with another quality.” 


123 WHAT KITTY FOUND 

“ What happens when yon make that kind of 
mistake?” Kitty asked curiously. 

“ We pay for it,” the girl said simply. 

“ Do you mean to say that you had to pay the 
sixty cents I didn’t pay on those two yards of 
silk?” 

“Yes, miss.” 

“ For goodness’ sake ! ” Then suddenly, “ I 
really beg your pardon, but would you mind 
telling me what salary your position commands ? 
Er — how much do you make a week ? ” 

“ Three dollars.” 

Kitty gasped. She often spent that much on 
a pair of gloves or an afternoon’s pleasuring. 

“ Then you received but two-forty for last 
week? ” 

The girl nodded. 

“ And ” Kitty stopped. She was tempted 

to ask as Anne would have suggested, “ Do you 
support yourself and a sick mother ? ” but while 
she hesitated the girl said cheerfully : “You see, 
I could stand it much better than most of them,” 
— with a nod toward girls at other counters — 
“ for I only have to buy clothes. Father would 
never let me pay a cent of board, although there 
are so many of us for one poor man to feed.” 

She handed Kitty the silk as she spoke, and 
Kitty, feeling herself dismissed, suddenly made 


WHAT KITTY FOUND 1 23 

a remark that startled herself almost as much as 
it did her hearer. 

“ I want awfully to talk with you. When do 
you go home ? ” 

“ At five, to-night. It’s my early night.” 

“ Do you walk ? ” 

“ Yes’m ; it’s only ten blocks.” 

“ Then may I walk with you ? ” 

“ Why — why, yes’m, if you want to.” 

“I want to very much,” Kitty said earnestly, 
“and I’ll be here at five.” 

Then she went to the waiting room and sat in 
a brown study for ten long minutes. “ I know 
what Cousin Ruth thought that night — that per- 
haps if I had to change places with the slangy 
shop-girl for a day, I would have more sympathy 
for her. Perhaps I would. At any rate I would 
like to learn more about the species from this 
poor child who paid some of her next dress per- 
haps, on my China silk.” 

So at five o’clock Miss Kitty, in her tailor- 
made garb, was stepping briskly along back 
streets beside the shop-girl in her shabby jacket. 

Though she had said it with a touch of vanity, 
Kitty had spoken truly when she reminded 
Anne that tact was one of her undisputed pos- 
sessions. Tactfulness she certainly had, and a 
good, warm heart ; and since she meant to be 


124 WHAT KITTY FOUND 

“impertinent past all bounds,” she began by 
winning the heart of this sweet-faced, sober- 
gowned girl, in a way in which only a girl very 
much in earnest could. 

“And now that we are friends, the silk all 
straightened out, and our account square,” she 
said at last, “ may I ask you, just as one girl of 
another, how on earth you do it ? ” 

“ Do what ? Oh, I see, dress myself and help 
with Susie on three dollars a week ? ” 

“ Susie? ” 

“ My little sister who is in school. Why, I am 
sure that is not hard. Of course I can’t buy the 
best quality of anything, whether underwear, 
shoes, or dresses ; but it does very well, and it is 
easy to get along with little when you have to. 
There is only one thing I want money for.” 

Kitty thought of twenty things in a minute, 
all very wide of the mark, as she learned when 
Agnes — for that was this new acquaintance’s 
name — said gravely, “ And that is, to entertain.” 

“ To entertain ! ” Kitty echoed breathlessly. 
Of all things she never would have suspected 
that this Agnes had any social ambitions. 

“Yes, to entertain the other girls, and keep 
them from either freezing these raw evenings in 
their bare little rooms, or going to cheap shows 
for want of better amusement.” 


WHAT KITTY FOUND 1 25 

“ Why don’t they go to the reading rooms and 
public libraries ? ” 

“ Half of them can’t read — at least precious 
little — and most of those places are so big and 
grand they scare the girls off anyhow. But I 
know they would come to our house if I could 
afford a fire in the parlor every night and — and 
—oh, some way of amusing them, pictures, or 
music, or something to eat, or anything.” 

While she spoke Kitty’s face was brightening. 

“I could hug you right here,” she said im- 
pulsively. “ Of course they would incline to be 
slangy and rude — no decent advantages — starved 
positively — no joke. I would starve physically 
as well as morally on three dollars a week, and — 
such a place for my tithes ! See here, Agnes ” 
— suddenly facing the bewildered girl beside her 
— “ do you know that for months I have been 
setting aside a tenth of my* allowance for the 
lyord’s work, and it has just stayed there in a 
corner of my drawer waiting for its work ? ket 
us go partners. You find the girls, and I will 
furnish the capital ; enough money for fuel and 
light, new, bright books to read aloud, games to 
play, and fruit to eat, and — oh, if you’ll let me 
in, Thomas shall drive me there sometimes, and 
I’ll bring my mandolin or banjo, and — there’s no 
end to the things we can do.” 


126 


WHAT KITTY FOUND 


Agnes, if bewildered before, looked radiantly 
glad now, her intelligent face lighting up until 
it was positively beautiful. 

“ It will make Sallie and Sadie and Jen over 
new,” she said. 

The people who from Kitty’s luxurious home 
watched the developments, thought that Kitty, 
of all the rest, was most entirely “ made over 
new.” 

“ If she did not find the exact type of shop- 
girl for which she searched,” Cousin Ruth said 
gently, “ she did find her way to the real life of 
some not-too-kindly-judged folk, and in trying 
to ‘ lend a hand ’ to them, has lent new grace 
and charm to her own spirit.” 


XIV 


PINK AND GRAY 


HEY were discussing new fall gowns and 
bonnets when Colonel Bradwood, whom 
they had thought asleep in his big 
chair by the fire, suddenly turned toward 
them. The colonel was always a stately, hand- 
some figure, but to-day he looked more attractive 
than ever with the warm gleam of the firelight 
on his iron-gray hair, and the twinkle of fun in 
his deep-set eyes. 

“Plum-color or black? Gray-blue or gold- 
brown ? How hard a question it is ! ” he said 
with one hand on Haddie’s soft curls as she sat 
on the rug near his feet. “ But, girls, put away 
this study of plumage for a minute, and let me 
tell you a color story, and a true one at that.’^ 
With little exclamations the girls drew up 
rockers and ottomans and swarmed about his 
chair. At the same moment the colonel started 
toward the door. A wail of disappointment 
arose from the girls. 



127 


128 


PINK AND GRAY 


“ Is that the way you tell stories ? Rouse us 
to eagerness, and then run away ? ’’ 

Colonel Bradford laughed. “ Did I say ‘ tell a 
story ’ ? I meant to read one,” he said good- 
naturedly, “but a true one neverthelesss.” In a 
moment he had crossed to his study and returned 
with a packet of letters. “ I said a color story, 
girls, and I think we will name it ‘ Pink and 
Gray.’ To begin in the good, old-fashioned way : 

“ Once upon a time there were two girls ” 

“ I am glad they are girls,” said Anna ; but 
Jennie’s soft fingers over her mouth prevented 
further interruption, and the colonel continued : 

“ Two very sweet, good girls who had worked 
pretty hard most of their live^ and had had 
very little pleasure. Finally it was possible for 
them to take an entire summer’s outing, and 
everybody rejoiced for them and thought what a 
fine time they would have and how much good 
it would do them. They were sisters, you know 

had I told you that? — and both good, true 

girls, and yet one was a rose-maiden, and the 
other a — a ” 

“A gray, droopy blossom like those forlorn, 
weedy things that grow on the road to Prior- 
dale. Have I guessed?” Clara exclaimed ea- 
gerly, her thoughtful face aglow with the idea 
she had caught of the colonel’s color story. 


PINK AND GRAY 


129 


“ Guessed exactly ! ” said the colonel ; “ and 
now I shall let May and Theodora tell their own 
stories in these letters which I hold. Whose are 
they ? How did I get them ? How dare I read 
them? No wonder you ask, little Miss Honor- 
bright, and yet I am afraid you must be content 
with knowing that the letters came honorably 
into my possession, and that these two unusual 
girls are willing to have me use them ” 

“ To point a moral and adorn a tale ? ” 

“Yes, again.” 

“ Then,” said Haddie, clapping her hands de- 
lightedly, “ I know how and why it was possible 
for them to have this happy summer. You are 
a fairy godfather, colonel, and you made them 
believe they could pay for it all by writing it up 
for you ” 

“ What a dreamer of dreams ! ” said the 
colonel, laughing so heartily that his very spec- 
tacles seemed to twinkle. “Never mind the 
why and wherefore. Just listen, and see that 
you ‘ pay for it all ’ by finding the moral hidden 
under this pink and gray,” and drawing forth 
folds of neatly written sheets, he began : 

Lake Linden, July 10, 1890. 
My Dear : 

We have been here a month now, but it seems 
so much longer. People talk about this glorious 

I 


130 


PINK AND GRAY 


Minnesota climate, but I cannot say that I find 
much to commend in it. It is either uncomfort- 
ably warm, with the wind blowing such a gale 
that one must scream to be heard, or it is cloudy 
and cold and disagreeable. 

The people with whom we board have a small 
cottage where there is a fireplace in the dining 
room, and also in the kitchen ; but we all sleep 
in tents. Such sleeping! One never knows 
but that one may wake up in a storm and find 
the tent flapping like a huge balloon ; and there 
are apt to be gartersnakes in one’s shoes occasion- 
ally, and bugs and spiders crawling over every- 
thing. It is enough to give one the horrors. 

Yesterday we went sailing. Mr. McGregor in- 
vited us, and there were eight in the party. It 
was dreadfully rough, and I confess there wasn’t 
much pleasure for me in lurching about from 
one side of the boat to the other, and never feel- 
ing sure that I could stay in my seat. The sun 
on the water was blinding, and we seemed to get 
yards of extra glare from the big, white sail. 
Some of the crowd told funny stories on the 
way, but there wasn’t much point to most of 
them, and I thought it rather tiresome. The 
trip was very long — away up to the other end of 
the lake. There we climbed out with some 
difficulty, and walked awhile, getting our shoes 
full of sand and our clothes covered with horrid 
little burrs. I found some beautiful flowers, but 
they wilted so soon that I was sorry I had both- 
ered to get them. 

We ate lunch under a big oak tree, and though 


PINK AND GRAY 


I was very hungry, the little red ants got into 
the food so dreadfully that there was no enjoying 
anything. 

We went back to the boat by another way, 
and had to cross a little stream on a log. It was 
horribly slippery, and half of us got our feet 
more or less wet by losing our balance. Wasn’t 
that disagreeable? 

We didn’t get back until late in the afternoon, 
and I was tired to death. 

Theodora says she is going to write you, so I 
guess I will stop. Hope she will not tell you 
just what I have. I have gained eight pounds, 
but it isn’t very becoming, and I am dreadfully 
freckled. 

Your affectionate friend. 

May. 

“ Dear me ! ” Anna exclaimed with a sigh, as 
the colonel drew forth a second letter ; and there 
'was a sort of tired settling into chairs as though 
the gray missive had weighed unpleasantly 
upon them. 

“ This is Theodora’s, written the same after- 
noon,” said the colonel : 

You Dear ! 

As May has not written before, and must have 
had lots of “way back ” things to tell you, I will 
make it my business just to let you know about 
the glorious sail we had yesterday afternoon. 

It was a perfect day for it, the lake as blue as 


132 


PINK AND GRAY 


the sky, the waves dashing, all a-sparkle, against 
the boat-dock, and a fine breeze blowing. 
Wasn’t Mr. McGregor a dear to ask us ? He is 
such a splendid sailor that we were not a bit 
afraid. We had to tack all the way to the upper 
end of the lake, and when he cried “Hard-a- 
port,” we ducked our heads while the boom 
swung over us. Sometimes we were away up 
until we had to brace our feet against the center- 
board to keep from sliding right out of our 
seats, and at other times we were down so near 
the water that we could splash our hands in it ; 
and on the return trip, I kept my lovely ferns 
fresh by dipping them in this way as we cut 
through the saucy waves. 

Everything had been planned in the loveliest 
way for us, even to a dear little lunch, which we 
ate in a cool, grassy place up in Sunset Hollow. 
You don’t know how good everything tastes out 
in the open air, anyway. Even the bugs were 
hungry (I couldn’t blame them), and once, as fat 
little Bobby Hinde was taking in a big mouth- 
ful, everybody yelled, and he had to stop until 
some one plucked a huge “grand-daddy-long- 
legs” from his bread and butter. Oh, I had 
such an appetite ! I have gained ten whole 
pounds in just a month. Mrs. Gale says they 
will call me little Moon-face pretty soon, but 
I’m sure the old man in the moon never was so 
brown as I, even if he does wear nearly as broad 
a smile. 

I forgot to tell you what fun we had landing. 
It was so shallow we couldn’t get within two 


PINK AND GRAY 


133 


yards of the shore, so Mr. McGregor ran up 
alongside a huge boulder, and Mr. Vincent 
jumped out upon this to help us. Then we 
girls, climbing up beside the mast, gained the 
shore in two flying leaps. When my turn came, 
I reached the boulder all right, but on the 



second jump I went 
splash into the water! 
I scared a green frog 
nearly into fits, and wet my 
feet thoroughly ; but the wind 
dries things out in a jiffy up 
here, and nobody minds a ducking in the least. 
I got another one going back — slipped into a 
stream from a mossy tree — but I would rather 
be half drowned than to have missed seeing as 
pretty a thing as that fern-fringed stream. It 
was an afternoon long to be remembered, and I 
often think what a pleasure it will be to tell 
it all over to the dear folks at home. 

Now I must run and help Mrs. Gale make the 
cookies for tea. I have ever so much to tell 
you, and will write again soon. Your loving 

Theodora. 


134 


PINK AND GRAY 


“ Why, it is almost like a story ! ” Haddie 
exclaimed. “ Do read another one of Theo- 
dora’s.” 

The colonel, smilingly, drew out other folded 
pages. 

My Dear Good : 

How can I ever tell you what royally good 
times we are having ! It is all like a beautiful 
dream. Tast night we sat around a glowing 
fire in the cottage, and told stories and acted 
charades while the wind howled and the rain 
dashed outside. Then at bedtime, such fun as 
it was, covered with our big shawls, to race 
across from the cottage to our old tent door ; 
and later, to lie snug and cozy under our gray 
blankets, while the oak leaves scraped and the 
rain beat against our tent roof. One feels 
always so safe and warm to hear the storm so 
close all around, and yet to be snugly sheltered 
from it. The way one does sleep up here ! 
Every morning I truly feel as though I had been 
made over new, and I spring up with a bound 
and hurry to dress, that I may be able to row 
across the lake to an old farmhouse, where we get 
the richest, freshest milk for breakfast. 

Rowing is such fun ! Mrs. Gale thinks I row 
as well as the boys. I know that is hardly true, 
though I am sure I love it as well. 

Every minute is crammed full of good times. 
If it is cold or stormy we stay indoors and enjoy 
the bonny fire, making silky pompons of our 


PINK AND GRAY 


13, 


silver-lined milkweed pods, or reading beautiful 
things aloud to each other. When the sun 
shines, there are simply mines of treasure on all 
sides. Pretty shaded walks, dear little coves to 
explore, bathing, fishing, tennis — why, I never 
in my life knew anything like it ! ” 

I must tell you about our berrying expedition 
this morning. Five of us in two boats rowed 
down to the lower end of the lake, singing and 
laughing all the way. 

We left our boats on the pretty, sandy beach 
and started, Indian fashion, through the woods, 
along a little path that was so cool and sweet it 
made me think of the path we read about in 
“ Adam Bede ” the other day : “A narrow, hol- 
low-shaped, earthy path, edged with faint dashes 
of delicate moss — a path which looked as if 
made by the free will of the trees and under- 
wood moving reverently aside to look at some 
tall queen of white-footed nymphs.” Isn’t that 
pretty? 

Then we came out into an open space and 
slipped, one by one, down a rough way into a 
long hollow where once an old railroad ran. 
Only the deserted ties and an occasional rusty 
rail were left to tell the tale, and these were 
tucked tenderly in under long, pale grasses and 
delicate wild flowers until they were like the 
babes in the wood that the robins buried. All 
along the sides trailed ferns and slender vines, 
and where the sunlight lay warmest, sifted 
through the oak trees overhead, ripe, red berries 
gleamed among their leaves. 


136 


PINK AND GRAY 


We have berries at home, but never did 
berries taste like these, with their wild, sweet 
flavor that only the sun and this clear air can 
give. And to pick them ourselves, fresh and 
luscious and sweet ! Can you imagine how we 
enjoyed it ? how each new one was a new sur- 
prise ? how we ate and ate, and filled our pails 
and baskets ? and how we came home at noon 
with seven quarts for astonished Mrs. Gale ? 
Oh, I can’t tell it all ! If you could just be here 
to see and enjoy it yourself ! I wish every tired, 
or sick or sad girl I know could be here to share 
it. 

Now we are going in bathing, and if there is 
anything lovelier than berrying and sailing, it 
is splashing about in those big, green waves on 
as breezy a day as this. 

How can I ever thank you 

“ Er — ahem — a — ” 

Your loving friend, 

Theodora. 

The colonel’s benevolent face was warm as 
he finished, and Haddie laughed : “I told you 
so ! The fairy godfather did have something to 
do with this summer story.” 

But the colonel, with a “Tut, tut! Don’t 
jump at conclusions, child,” opened a fourth 
letter. 


PINK AND GRAY 


137 


My Dear Sir : 

My apologies ought to precede my letter, for 
I cannot write presentably with my hand all 
cramped and blistered from rowing. For my 
part, I can’t see what pleasure 

“ Oh, colonel, it’s that gray girl again ! 
Please don’t read it ! It will spoil all the sun- 
shine of the other,” Anna pleaded. 

“We can guess it, anyhow,” Clara said. 
“Went berrying — dreadfully long walk — sun 
hot — bushes thorny — ate too much — got sick 

“ Hear, hear ! ” cried the others in chorus. “ If 
it isn’t as like her as can be ! ” 

“ Do you appreciate the superiority of pink 
over gray, young women ? ” the colonel asked, 
smiling, though grave withal. 

“ I should say so ! ” Jennie answered. “ No 
fairy godfather living would ever want to 
shower blessings again upon such a fog-maiden 
as that fretful May.” 

“ As a matter of policy then ” the colonel 

began, pretending dullness ; but he was promptly 
pounced upon and smothered to silence by 
impulsive little Haddie, while Anna, taking the 
part of spokeswoman for the crowd, expressed 
their thanks for the color story, and added 
seriously : 


138 PINK AND GRAY 

“We do see the moral, dear Colonel Brad- 
wood, and I think I know four girls at least 
who will try to make over their winter tempers 
with more pink and less gray. Do you remem- 
ber what grandma used to remind us, ‘ A merry 
heart doeth good like a medicine ’ ? 


XV 


“DOERS OF THE WORD” 


ff HB senior class of the To wood High 
School was holding an indignation 
meeting in the little class-room, which 
was its own particular sanctum. Every- 
body talked at the same time, and everybody 
was angry. 

“ It takes all the life out of the calisthenics.” 
“ The singing simply isn’t fit to listen to.” 

“If they had to cut down expenses, they 
might have done it in some other way,” Pauline 
Boehm said indignantly. 

“ I should say so ! ” Jean Russell acquiesced. 
“ From time immemorial they have kept a piano 
for the main room, and to think that now, our 
year, the crowning time, they must cart it off, 
and rant about expenses. Makes me frantic ! ” 

“ Our exercises will be tame to deadness,” 
Mark Pettie lamented. “ Oh, if only I had been 
earning money all summer instead of working 
on my old, conditioned astronomy. For thirty 

139 


140 DOERS OF THE WORD 

dollars we could rent a piano, and a good one, 
until the end of the year.” 

Thirty dollars ! At those words there was a 
sudden hush, and girls and boys stood looking at 
each other as if struck simultaneously with the 
same idea. At last Harriet Erskine said : 

“ Of course with all the extra expenses of our 
graduating year, and with but six of us in the 
class, we couldn’t afford to rent a piano for the 
school, but ” 

“ The prize.” 

“Yes, the prize ; the very amount needed.” 

“ Thirty beautiful dollars. What a brick old 
Mr. Ansdell was to offer it ! ” 

“Then let’s call it a go,” Frank Hatherell 
said heartily. “ Of course we are all thinking 
of the same thing. Whoever wins the prize in 
the great and only contest on the twenty-second 
shall use the money for the general good, a large- 
hearted philanthropist whom we shall bless all 
the rest of the year.” 

“ Agreed ! Agreed ! ” was the general response ; 
yet one tongue was silent, for Emily Wyllie sat 
with lips tightly compressed and eyes averted. 

“ Aren’t you in it ? ” Frank asked, turning to 
her with a laugh. 

“No, I am not,” the girl answered positively. 
“If I win the prize I propose to use it as I 


DOERS OF THE WORD 


141 

please, and not feel bound by any promise to 
rent a piano ‘ for the general good,’ as you call 
it. I’ll let the rest of you make the grand de- 
nials. I wasn’t cut out for a philanthropist,” 
and so saying she walked hastily into the large 
room. 

“ You needn’t have told us that,” Jean snapped 
after her retreating figure. “What you were 
cut out for nobody knows, unless for a narrow- 
minded, vain, selfish egotist.” 

“ ’Sh,” Pauline remonstrated gently. 

“Well, it’s true anyhow,” Harriet declared. 
“She is vain and selfish and small spirited. I’ll 
venture to say she has decided to spend the 
money for extra laces, or some sort of nonsense 
for her graduating dress.” 

“No doubt — if she gets it, which may kind 
Providence help us to prevent,” Jean said with 
such fervor that it made the others laugh. 

“ I don’t care,” Jean continued ; “I am not 
malicious or spiteful generally, but I heartily 
hope she will not come within sight of that prize. 
I would rather you, Mark, who don’t even pre- 
tend to go through ‘ The Psalm of Life ’ without 
quaking, should win it, than she with all her 
elocution and self-possession.” 

“ But her elocution and self-possession are the 
rub,” Mark said good-naturedly doleful. “With 


142 


DOERS OF THE WORD 


those strong qualities she is more apt to walk 
off with the treasure than any of us, timid, 
shrinking, gifted creatures that we are.” 

“Only one thing could upset her,” Harriet 
said with a sudden smile; “something amiss 
with her toilet. If her dress should not fit, her 
sash come untied, or a button snap from her 
shoe or glove — any such catastrophe would give 
the rest of us a chance.” 

“Then may the catastrophe arrive as surely 
as the audience,” Jean said ardently. “ In the 
meantime let us work as we never worked before, 
to come out ahead in the contest. We have a 
double object now — the piano for this poor, des- 
pairing school, and the satisfaction of making 
that girl’s selfishness avail nothing.” 

They did work, as they felt contestants never 
worked before. They put in hours after school 
training their voices to reach to the farthest 
corner of the empty hall. Before their mirrors, 
or the critical eyes of teachers and classmates, 
they labored with “natural positions'” and “ easy 
gestures,” which somehow refused to be either 
natural or easy. And, until hoarseness or phys- 
ical exhaustion drove them from the field, they 
anxiously repeated line upon line, page upon 
page, their souls intent upon pauses, inflection, 
articulation, and expression. 


DOERS OP THE WORD 


143 


Meantime Emily Wyllie was systematically 
snubbed, and the more vehemently as the con- 
viction grew upon them all that her oration 
really would surpass all her former efforts, and, 
worse still, all their own. 

At last the great date came, and all thoughts 
were centered upon the annual oratorical contest 
of the senior class. By half-past seven the great 
hall was filled ; at eight there was not standing 
room. Lights blazed, programmes fluttered, and 
the breath of flowers scented all the air. 

One by one the contestants appeared upon the 
broad platform, until four of the six had finished 
and retired amid the applause of the audience. 
The orchestra, composed of some of the school- 
boys musically inclined, was valiantly struggling 
with a difficult selection, and by reference to the 
programme the audience knew that following 
this, Emily Wyllie, the acknowledged elocu- 
tionist of the class, would deliver her oration, 
“ A Voice from the Heights.” 

Back of the scenes the six contestants paced 
the plank floor excitedly, or sat for brief snatches 
of rest upon rolls of baize floor covering. 

“If only her dress would split at one of the 
darts,” Jean whispered to Harriet. “ It is tight 
enough to fly into a hundred pieces. Silly thing, 
to squeeze herself up like that ! ” 


144 


DOERS OF THE WORD 


Emily walked the floor, her head held high, 
one hand carefully guarding her airy gown from 
the dust and jagged corners of the wings. The 
music stopped. Emily started, but dropped her 
fan. In stooping to pick it up, the hem of her 
skirt caught upon one of the very jagged points 
she had been so watchfully avoiding. 

There was an ominous slitting, ripping sound, 
and the hem, torn well around, trailed upon the 
floor. 

Jean and Harriet looked on aghast, feeling 
almost as though the strength of their wishes 
had brought them to pass. 

For a moment Emily’s face was white with 
consternation and alarm. Then she gathered 
up the unsightly thing trailing in the dust to one 
side, and asked wildly of one and another : “ Help 
me, quick ! Have you a pin, or you, or you ? I 
need a dozen.” 

“ The house is waiting,” called Prof. Vonnoh 
impatiently. 

Emily burst into tears. “ I may as well give 
up now,” she sobbed ; “I never can go out like 
this. And I believe you are all glad. You know 
you hate me.” 

Nobody spoke. 

“ Come, hurry. Miss Wyllie ! ” called the pro- 
fessor, who could not understand the delay. 


DOERS OF THE WORD 


145 


Harriet was slipping nervous fingers along the 
hem of her basque searching for pins, but none 
were there. “ She doesn’t deserve it, girls, but 
we ought to help her. This is un-christian. 
Hasn’t some one a pin ? ” 

But “ Sunday clothes ” carry few such accom- 
modations. One pin was at last secured, and 
Harriet bent down and attempted to make it 
answer, but without success. A dozen, indeed, 
would have been none too many. 

Jean, meanwhile, had been struck by a sudden 
thought. She and Emily were the only girls in 
white ; they were the same size ; both their 
gowns were made empire style, with short waists 
and flowing skirts. She stood undecided. Help 
that hateful, selfish thing? Never! She might 
get out of the scrape as best she could. Then, 
like a flash, she remembered the sermon on 
brotherly love she had heard the Sunday before ; 
how, coming from church, she had complained 
that though Mr. Renfro’s sermons were fine they 
hadn’t much influence after all ; and how Tom, 
her blunt, big brother, had said sententiously, 
‘‘ Because you don’t try to live up to them. ‘ Be 
ye doers of the word, not hearers only.’ ” Aye, 
that was was it. “ Be ye kindly affectioned one 
to another,” and “ doers of the word.” 

With her saucy face unusually gentle, she 

K 


146 


DOERS OF THE WORD 


hurried to the frantic girl who stood holding up 
her gown, and said decidedly, “ Here, I will 
manage it ! Frank, go quickly and tell Pro- 
fessor Vonnoh how things are. Say that I will 
come next instead of Miss Wyllie. And yon, 
Emily, bathe your eyes and pull yourself to- 
gether. Then slip off your skirt and be all ready 

to put mine 
on the min- 
u t e I re- 
turn. Do 
you under- 
stand ? ” 

The announce- 
1 e n t had been 
ade, and Jean was 
■ before Emily had 
Lite comprehended 
t she meant. It 
dawned upon her swiftly 
however, and new hope 
lighted up her handsome eyes. When Jean re- 
turned she was ready and waiting, and the ex- 
change was quickly made. 

People said that Emily Wyllie never had done 
so well before, that she seemed unconscious of 
everything save the burning story of her “ Voice 
from the Heights.” They had all done well. 



DOERS OF THE WORD 


147 


Jean Russel in particular, but to Emily Wyllie 
the judges accorded the honor of surpassing all 
rivals, and in her shapely hand the three gold 
eagles were placed during hearty applause. 

The other participants in the oratorical con- 
test went home rather quietly. “ Good-bye to 
hope,” Pauline said with a kind of dreary 
patience. “No music this year. Calisthenics 
by count, and songs just anyhow. And we 
might so easily have won the day ! ” 

“ It did seem like a providence,” Frank said 
ruefully, “just the sort of accident we had 
thought of and just in the nick of time.” 

“ And Jean, of all people, to have gone to the 
rescue ! Jean, yon would have had that prize 
yourself if you had held on to your rights and 
your dress skirt.” 

“After all,” Jean said triumphantly, “aren’t 
yon every one glad ? A prize won so unfairly 
could never have satisfied one of us. She was 
justly entitled to it, of course, and I am glad she 
had as fair a chance as any of us.” 

So the matter dropped ; and so, by the time 
the happy spring vacation had passed and the 
next term began, it was nearly forgotten. On 
the second morning however, as the students, 
singly and in groups, mounted the stairs, they all 
stopped, delighted, about an object near the door. 


148 


DOERS OF THE WORD 


Jean Russel, pushing her way through the 
crowd, stared amazed. 

It was a piano, and a beautiful one ! 

She hurried to the class-room where she found 
the others gathered. The news was no news to 
them evidently, for they were all discussing it at 
once. 

“So you were ‘in it’ after all?” Frank 
Hatherell was saying to Emily Wyllie ; and 
Emily, though her face shone, said very little. 

“ I had meant to add that money to the 
sum papa promised for my commencement 
dress,” she said to Jean in confidence that noon ; 
“ but somehow, when I stood there that night, 
feeling how you all despised me, it dawned upon 
me that the respect and love of friends might, 
after all, amount to more than pretty clothes. 
I was determined to win, to show yon all that I 
could be generous too. I had heard sermons all 
my life against worldly-mindedness, selfishness, 
and vanity, and I resolved then and there to 
be ” 

“ A doer of the word, not a hearer only? ” 

“ Exactly,” Emily assented. 

So the High School had music to the close of 
the year, and there was sweeter music in the 
hearts of these two who had honestly tried to be 
“ doers of the word.” 


XVI 


TO SERVE OR TO BE SERVED 


T-A-TAT-TAT, went somebody’s 
knuckles against the panel of Mary’s 
door, but Mary only rolled over sleepily, 
prepared for another nap. 

“ Marne ! Marne ! ” Johnnie’s impatient voice 
sounded. “ Aren’t you going to get up to-day? 
I have knocked four times.” 

“ All right,” replied Mary, with sleepy cheer- 
fulness. “ Much obliged to you for calling me.” 

Then as Johnnie went off grumbling, she 
stretched her young limbs luxuriously under 
the soft covers, and thought how delicious it 
was that it was Saturday morning, with no 
school to go to and no rush over breakfast and 
books. To be sure, cook in the kitchen would 
be angry over her delayed breakfast, and mother 
would scold a little, but Mary knew how eas- 
ily she could pacify them both. She actually 
laughed with the sudden comfortable reflection 
that nobody could be angry with her long, and 

149 



150 TO SERVE OR TO BE SERVED 

that it was a delightfully happy faculty, that of 
being able to twist people around one’s finger. 

“ It pays much better,” she ruminated pleas- 
antly, “to be sweet and good-tempered. The 
girls all wonder how I happen to have things 
my own way always, and to do as I please, and 
get what I want, when it is all just because I 
know how to manage folks and not lose my 
temper.” 

A little smile of conscious superiority flitted 
across her dimpled face. “All the people I 
know rush around to do things for me. They 
really seem to think it the natural thing to do. 
If I want a book, Johnnie gets it. If my jacket 
is dusty, grandma brushes it. If my schoolbag 
is heavy. Sue carries it. They are all my dear 
slaves, little and big — bless ’em ! ” and Mary 
laughed again, yawning drowsily and burrow- 
ing her yellow head into the soft pillow. 

“ Ma-ry,” called Mrs. Wadsworth from the 
foot of the stairs. 

“ Yes’m, I’m coming,” and Mary jumped up 
with alacrity, ran swiftly to the pretty, open fire 
Johnnie had built in her grate and, catching up 
her boots, knocked their little heels together to 
shake off the dust. She dressed rapidly then, 
and in fifteen minutes was down in the dining 
room. 


TO SERVE OR TO BE SERVED 1 51 

Breakfast was over and the family * gone. 
Jane, in the kitchen, gave noisy evidence of 
her displeasure, as she brought in the warm 
plate and dishes from the heater. She had lost 
time which she could not make up all day ; but 
Mary, rosy and smiling, greeted her so genially 
and met her complaints with such gay good 
humor, that the long-suffering servant ceased 
to scold, and even browned her cakes with un- 
usual care. 

It was a leisurely, comfortable breakfast, and 
at its conclusion Mary sought her mother, who 
was busily sweeping the double parlors. 

“Run upstairs, please, Mary, will you?’’ that 
mother said, “and help Bessie with the beds. 
Air them thoroughly, but be as quick as you 
can. There is so much to be done this morn- 
ing.” 

“ Yes, ma’am. All right,” and Mary mounted 
the stairs again, pausing on the landing to look 
through the small window and notice what a 
beautiful, clear, bright day it was. “ Too pretty 
to stay indoors,” was her mental comment ; and 
bed-making seemed so distasteful that, upon 
reaching the room where Bessie was shaking 
blankets and sorting clean sheets, she exclaimed : 
“ Well, Bess, let’s strike a bargain. You hustle 
around and do this work real quick, and I will 


152 TO SERVE OR TO BE SERVED 

press that brown serge you have been worrying 
over.” 

“Well,” answered Bessie, though somewhat 
ruefully, for she knew how much the better of 
the bargain Mary was getting. But she had 
dreaded ironing the serge, fearing she could 
not do it nicely, so she worked willingly after 
Mary had gone down with the armful of goods. 

“ Jane, you love your Mary, don’t you? ” the 
pretty lips above the brown serge drawled whim- 
sically. “ I don’t know how to press this stuff 
decently ; so you do it, and I’ll wash your dishes 
and tell you funny stories, there’s a dear ! ” 

And cook was finally persuaded. 

The funny stories were very funny indeed, 
and it was not until Mary had vanished tri- 
umphantly upstairs with the neatly-pressed dress 
goods that Jane, tired and heated, discovered the 
dishes standing just as she had left them, with 
the exception of a few knives and glasses that 
the girl had made a feint of washing. 

“And yet I s’pose I’d be fool enough to be 
caught again the same way to-morrow,” she 
sighed, as she put away the irons and started 
toward her dish-pan. 

Mary, in the meantime, having reached the 
head of the stairs, was sure she heard wheels 
stopping, and ran to the front window to see. 


TO SERVE OR TO BE SERVED 1 53 

There were the Boughtons, the whole family, 
in a large carryall, starting for the woods. She 
disposed of the serge in a hurry and ran down- 
stairs. Her mother, in dust-cap and apron, stood 
on the steps ; and she heard Mrs. Bough ton say : 

“We did not decide to go until this morning. 
Don’t mind anything. Come just as you are. 
We have plenty of lunch for us all — had it in 
the house, fortunately.” 

But Mrs. Wadsworth shook her head. “ It is 
a great temptation,” she said wistfully. “I 
haven’t had a day in the woods for years. But 
I really cannot go. There is extra cake to bake, 
and the library windows to wash, and Johnnie’s 
trousers to mend, and the geraniums to get in- 
doors for the winter, and — oh, so many things 
that cannot possibly be put off.” 

“ So sorry,” they all said ; and then Della 
Boughton called, “ Oh, Marne ! can’t you come ? 
Do say she may, Mrs. Wadsworth.” 

Mrs. Wadsworth looked from Mary to their 
friends. 

“ We should like very much to have her,” 
Mrs. Boughton said warmly. 

“ Oh, mamma, pie-ease let me go,” pleaded 
Mary. “ I was just wild to get out ! If you 
will only say yes, I will do every bit of that big 
basket of darning when I get back.” 


1 54 TO SERVE OR TO BE SERVED 

“It is such a busy day,” sighed Mrs. Wads- 
worth ; “ but there, dear — yes, you may go.” 

So Mary, in a transport of delight, hugged 
her mother gayly, ran for her cap and jacket, and 
was soon spinning away down the road. 

Such a long, happy day it was, with never a 
thought of the overworked folks at home to 
mar it. At night when she returned, tired but 
smiling, Bess had done the darning, and she had 
only to rest in the easiest chair in the library, 
and read her Sunday-school book. 

“ What a lovely world it is, and what good 
times I have in it,” she sighed contentedly. 

All the next day she could not forget how 
lucky it was to be born pretty and winsome, 
with the sort of tact that made each day a little 
easier than the day before. That night she went 
to the Christian Endeavor meeting, and just 
before her on the blackboard, were the words of 
the evening’s text, from Matthew 20 : 28 : 

“ Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” 

She had heard that text dozens of times before, 
and she had never thought much more about it 
than she thought now, which was very little. 
But during the hour a visitor rose to speak to 
them, a minister she imagined him to be, a 
white-haired man with a kind, strong face, and 
glowing, earnest eyes. 


TO SERVE OR TO BE SERVED 1 55 

Mary did not hear much of what he said. 
She was interested in the way the color flushed 
to his cheeks as he grew more and more earnest, 
and in wondering whether, when she grew old, 
her cheeks too would be rosy, and everybody 
as glad as now to have her about, and to do nice 
little things for her. 

“And instead of following the example and 
command of our blessed Saviour” — somehow 
the words penetrated through all her easy in- 
difference, and she began to listen — “we go 
about trying not to minister, but to be ministered 
unto. Our daily thought is not, ‘ What may I 
do for others that the world may be better, 
brighter, happier for my living in it?’ but, 
‘ What service can I contrive that others shall 
do for me, that my lot may be easy and my way 
smooth ? ’ 

“ lyike the mother of Zebedee’s children, we 
ask for the high places in the kingdom. We 
want power, and honor, and wealth — and why? 
That we may use these gifts for the uplifting 
and comforting of Christ’s suffering ones? Nay, 
more often that we may enjoy comforts and 
luxuries ourselves, and that we may command 
servants and friends, and be the more continually 
ministered unto. God help us to realize that 
whosoever would be chiefest must be servant of 


156 TO SERVE OR TO BE SERVED 

all ; that real grandeur of character comes only 
with the loving service that throws all selfish- 
ness aside ; and that to be truly Christian we 
must follow humbly in the footsteps of that meek 
and lowly one who, though the Son of the living 
God, came not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister, and to give his life a ransom for 
many.” 

Mary hardly knew why the words had touched 
her so deeply, why there were tears in her eyes, 
and why, in a single instant, the tact and good 
nature and executive ability with which she had 
complacently credited herself, changed to the 
ugly traits, deceit and indolence and selfishness. 

She went from the meeting to the church 
service in a kind of dream, which was really a 
most abrupt awakening ; and there listened to a 
sermon whose every word seemed to condemn 
the glaring selfishness of her daily living, and 
to point so directly to her individual self that 
she wondered all eyes were not centered upon 
her burning face. 

Once home she bolted her door and dropped 
upon her knees ; but she could hardly pray. 
Her very prayers, as she remembered them now, 
had been vain and self-satisfied, mere wicked 
petitions for such things as should add to her 
own pleasures and lessen her own cares. Con- 


TO SERVE OR TO BE SERVED 1 57 

trite and ashamed, she could only cry, with wet 
cheeks : 

“ Dear Dord, help me to start all over. Help 
me to minister, to minister, and not to strive only 
to be ministered unto.” 

If Mary was surprised at the sudden light in 
which she had seen her own character, her 
family and friends were treated to a series of 
surprises that only ended when they grew 
familiar with the idea that Mary was the one 
person always ready to help every one, and to 
change her own plans and forego her own pleas- 
ures that she might plan for and please other 
people. 

On the wall in her room hung an illuminated 
text to which, in her fights with self, she often 
ran for courage ; and in those simple words lay 
the keynote of her strength : 



XVII 


A HAPPY CHANGE 


> DAH gave an airy touch to the rose bowl 
whose trailing treasure swept the mirror 
below, straightened a pretty doyley or 
two, and stepped back a pace to catch 
the effect, half closing her eyes and tipping her 
head critically, as an artist might in viewing his 
painting. 

“ I think it is as dainty and artistic as pos- 
sible ! ” she said half exultantly. “I do think 
that in the arrangement of pretty luncheons I 
am a success.” 

“That you are,” Rose assented cordially. 
“ The table is a poem. Roses and ferns never 
looked prettier ; and those at the plates are ar- 
ranged with a sort of loose carelessness and grace 
which no one else, Adah, could possibly have 
achieved. Isn’t it nearly time for them to be 
here ? ” 

Adah took a swift peep at her watch. “ Ten- 
thirty. They were to come at eleven, to allow 
158 


A HAPPY CHANGE 1 59 

plenty of time for the drive. Graham will have 
the landau ready at exactly twelve.” 

“It is such a charming day ! ” rippled Rose, 
her eyes dancing. “ Holidays are delightful, 
even if they are only ‘ trumped-up, local affairs,’ 
as Professor Wilton so loftily pronounced this 
one.” 

“ Professor Wilton had to show his disgust in 
some way, at the popular pressure that com- 
pelled him to grant his long-suffering art stu- 
dents an idle day, along with the rest of the 
student world.” 

“ Hark ! Didn’t I hear the bell ? ” 

“ lyisten, and hear if Kitty goes.” 

The intent listening was presently rewarded 
by the sound of footsteps along the hall in the 
distance. 

“ It must be the girls. I’ll go at once,” Adah 
said, suiting the action to the words. In a mo- 
ment she returned, with an expression so utterly 
blank and woe-begone, that Rose could only 
gasp: 

“Oh, Adah! What is it?” 

“ Read that 1 ” Adah cried, thrusting a note 
before her whose blue and silver monogram was 
wet with tears of anger and disappointment. 
What Rose read, in the large and angular hand, 
was merely : 


i6o 


A HAPPY CHANGE 


My Dear Miss Durand : 

Christine and I regret deeply that we are com- 
pelled to leave for the West to-day instead of to- 
morrow as we intended, and so are obliged to 
forego the pleasure of the visit with you and 
your charming cousin. With many thanks for 
your kind invitation, 

Your sincere friend, 

Katherine Curdett. 

The “ charming cousin ” was at that moment 
looking quite crestfallen. “ To think of wasting 
all this ! ” she said mournfully. “ I am sure they 
could never guess what they are missing. Those 
lovely deviled crabs, piping hot as they will be, 
and all that chicken salad, and those dear little 
rolls, and the almonds and olives and ices, and 
the border of smilax ” 

“ And the roses, and green peas, and bon- 
bons,” Adah added, almost laughing through 
her tears, at the absurd medley. “They are 
used enough to those things,” she went on bit- 
terly, “ and I can’t flatter myself they will mind 
missing them ; but I do think it was a horrid 
trick to decline as late as this, and I do think 
they might have consulted our feelings as well 
as their own in this hurried departure. Besides, 
I don’t believe they were compelled to go. It 
was just one of Christine’s whims, that is all — 
and I am downright provoked ! ” 


A HAPPY CHANGE l6l 

“We might carry out our programme, any- 
how,” Rose suggested forlornly ; “ take our 
drive ” 

“ And look like a couple of small pills rolling 
around in a very large pill-box ! ” she com- 
mented bitterly. “And the table is so pretty! ” 

“ Can’t we ask some one else ? ” Rose burst 
forth with sudden inspiration. 

“ Everybody has engagements by this time,” 
Adah rejoined positively ; “ and besides, there 
isn’t a girl in our set who wouldn’t resent being 
asked so late.” 

“ Then ask somebody who isn’t in our set,” 
Rose ventured boldly. “ We need not let them 
know that they are mere substitutes. Or even 
if they discover that terrible truth, I am sure 
most girls would be sensible enough to under- 
stand the situation, and not to mind.” 

Adah was beginning to brighten visibly. 

“ There is that dear little Miss Sampson,” 
Rose went on impulsively. “ Little enough fun 
she has, digging away at the Normal and study- 
ing everlastingly, in season and out, to reach the 
time when she can make money. I fancy they 
must be very poor. And there is Eleanor Diel- 
man, in the antique class — you know her — doing 
light housekeeping in a third-story back. I don’t 
know which would do her the most good, the 


i 62 


A HAPPY CHANGE 


flowers and the pretty china or the good things 
to eat.” 

“ Upon my word, I’ll do it ! ” Adah exclaimed, 
with an air of tremendous resolve. “ I will see 
them myself — it is too late for notes. Graham 
can hitch up the phaeton in a jiffy. We will 
postpone lunch until twelve. You run and tell 
cook while I go for the girls. I wish I had asked 
them in the first place. Why do my selfish 
thoughts always come first? and after my beau- 
tiful talk just last Sunday to my Sunday-school 
girls about ‘ what is in the power of thine hand 
to do ! ’ ” 

The last regretful sentence was uttered as she 
ran, and in five minutes Adah Durand was spin- 
ning down the street to hunt up tired little Miss 
Sampson, and that “third-story back.” 

Rose watched from the window in a fever of 
impatience during what seemed a long hour, and 
yet the hands of the ormolu clock had told but 
half that time when the phaeton drove swiftly 
up and the three girls sprang out upon the walk. 
Bright enough their faces were, though Miss 
Sampson’s had the pinched look born of years 
of scrimped living. 

Rose greeted them with the real delight she 
so heartily felt, and they had hardly removed 
their hats and gloves when Adah announced : 


A HAPPY CHANGE 


163 

“We will go right out to lunch if you please. 
You see all the folks have gone down to the 
beach and we can choose what hours we like, 
so I ordered an early lunch to make time for a 
good, long drive afterward.” 

Rose, already pleased over the lovely lunch- 
eon, found her pleasure doubled in the delight of 
their guests. To see the light in Miss Samp- 
son’s tired, near-sighted eyes ; to hear Eleanor 
Dielman’s rapturous little cry when, discovering 
the card that bore her name, she lifted that 
cluster of fragrant roses from beside her plate, to 
feast her beauty-loving eyes upon them — that. 
Rose thought, would have given her an appetite 
for a dinner of herbs. 

They all laughed gayly once, when Eleanor 
said, with an involuntary outburst of confidence : 
“ Girls, you never could appreciate the solid 
satisfaction there is in all this daintiness and 
pretty service, unless, for a doleful term, you 
had lived the Bohemian life I have, and eaten 
baker’s bread from your knee, with your wooden 
butter plate in the other hand.” 

After that she seemed to enjoy as heartily as they 
her narrations of the funny experience of light 
housekeeping in a “ third-story back.” “ But after 
all,” she finished whimsically, “it is a good deal 
funnier in the telling than in the experiencing. 


164 A HAPPY CHANGE 

and one does long, with real hunger sometimes, 
for a bit of civilized living. Scrappy things that 
one has cooked one’s self are not always tempting 
when coming in discouraged from a hard day’s 
wrestling with Ajax or Hercules — especially if 
they are served in the sweet simplicity of a tin 
pail or one’s solitary chipped sauce-dish.” 

She laughed as she spoke, but observant Rose 
caught the gleam of a tear in her eye, and felt 
the more glad that “the dear child had one 
square meal, anyhow.” 

“And yet,” Miss Sampson said meditatively, 
“ I should think there would be some comfort in 
knowing you might cook what you like, have it 

clean, and eat all you please ” and then she 

flushed vividly with the painful consciousness 
that this might seem an insinuation against that 
authoritative person with whom she boarded, 
and whose advertisements read distinctly, “ Plenty 
of good, wholesome food, well cooked.” 

If less conscious of its artistic merits, she was 
refined and girlish and hungry enough to enjoy 
this savory and exquisite lunch as thoroughly as 
the little art student did ; and certainly when 
they rose from the table, bearing their sweet 
flowers with them, she was as impressed with a 
sense of content and well being. 

The horses were waiting with the roomy 


A HAPPY CHANGE 


165 

landau down at the gate, and tossing their fine 
heads impatiently. In a short time they had 
left the dirty streets of the city behind, and were 
bowling along shaded parkways toward the lake. 

What an afternoon it was ! And how long to 
be remembered. Miss Sampson could not recall 
anything so fine and breezy in all her experience. 
Walking at home, 
and an occasional 
trip in a crowded 
car during her 
school season — 
these were her only 
ideas of locomo- 
tion. Pleasure 
trips were quite 
out of her range. 

Under the magic 
of this novel elixir she found her spirits rising 
buoyantly, and her very shoulders with their stu- 
dent stoop beginning to straighten back firmly. 

Eleanor was like a bird uncaged, pointing out 
here a pretty bit of wood, there a charming 
curve in the road, yonder a shimmer of light 
on the grass-fringed lake, here a restful shadow 
in the dark beech trees. Colors no one else 
could see, she found in lake and field and sky, 
and reveled in. 



i66 


A HAPPY CHANGE 


They nibbled the delicious bonbons Adah had 
stowed away on the back seat, quenched their 
thirst at a rippling spring, and came home as 
the shadows were lengthening, their arms laden 
with woodland treasures, and their cheeks as 
pink as the delicious rose tints from the setting 
sun. 

When Adah and Rose talked it all over in the 
quiet that night, Adah said : 

“Do you remember how Aunt Ton’s baby 
gurgles ‘Do it aden,’ when they splash him into 
his little bath-tub ? Well, Rose, I certainly 
mean to ‘ do it aden ’ as often as I can. I never 
had a more satisfactory day, and I think I have 
some new lights on the text I taught so glibly 
last Sunday, ‘ Withhold not good from them to 
whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine 
hand to do it.’ ” 


XVIII 


IN DUE SEASON 


HE hasn’t got the sense she was born 
with ! ” Miss Elvira exclaimed, bound- 
ing in with so wrathful a shake of her 
tall person that the very spools on the 
little table rattled sympathetically. 

Miss Martha looked up mildly from her sew- 
ing. ‘‘Who do you mean, Elviry?” she asked. 

“Why, Dorris, to be sure! Want to know 
what the little idiot is doing now? Well, she 
is giving hours of her precious time to that 
weakly little Hayden woman for never a cent of 
pay. And not only that, but teachin’ her things 
that’ll take the bread and butter right out of her 
own mouth besides 1 ” 

“ I thought Mrs. Hayden was helping to bring 
the bread and butter in. Isn’t she one of Dorris’ 
drawing pupils?” 

Miss Martha, the elder, gave a grunt of dis- 
dain. “ You know a heap about it, Martha, now 
don’t you? So she was a drawing pupil once, 

167 



IN DUE SEASON 


1 68 

and Dorris had her sketchin’ those ugly plaster 
things as if her life depended on it, a-stayin’ 
after hours with her, and doing what not to help 
her along, ’cause she showed some interest.” 

“Well?” meekly questioned Miss Martha. 

“ Well, what business have poor folks got with 
such tomfoolery as charcoal drawin’s, anyhow? 
She’d better a-been home with her babies.” 

“But I thought her husband took care of the 
babies on his off days.” 

“So he does ; more fool he ! He’s a bigger 
simpleton over her ‘ talent ’ than she is. Didn’t 
I hear him the day he came to engage her 
lessons ? Such nonsense ! Well, he’s come to 
the end of his string, I guess. His engine 
jumped the track the other day, and he’s a 
cripple for life.” 

Miss Elvira snapped the words out spitefully, 
and hardly heard her sister’s horrified, “Oh, poor 
fellow ! ” 

“And now,” she continued, “ what must Dorris 
do but take all their cares on her shoulders, as 
though she was a pack horse, and all that family 
her particular load. I think I can just hear her 
sayin’, ‘My dear Mrs. Hayden, it is a real 
pleasure for me to give you lessons, and you 
know I am here teaching, anyway, and what 
does one more in a class matter ? I shall con- 


IN DUE SEASON 


169 

sider it a real favor if you will come right along 
just as you always have.’ Oh, I know her pretty 
little persuadin’s, as if the favors she does was all 
on the other side.” 

“ Well, I’m sure, Elviry, I think that was very 
sweet and nice of her.” 

“ Sweet and nice of her ! ” Miss Elvira echoed 
with scorn so mighty that little Miss Martha 
seemed to wither under it like a blossom before 
a blaze. “I say its su-i-cide, Martha Martin. 
Listen ! ” and Miss Elvira clicked out a succes- 
sion of sentences with telegraphic brevity. 
“ Summer’s cornin’ on. Pupils are dropping off. 
Only chance to make money ’s gettin’ orders and 
fillin’ ’em. Used to make it pay sellin’ little 
water-colors — went like hot cakes ! Now, teach- 
in’ Mrs. Hayden to make the little water-colors, 
and usin’ up her own time to do it. Mrs. Hay- 
den’s little water-colors will fill the market, and 
Dorris — Dorris ’ll fill the poorhouse or a lunatic 
asylum ! ” 

Miss Elvira flung herself across the room and 
started into the hall. But at the door she 
turned, re-entering abruptly. “ Well, if I ever ! 
Come here, Martha.” 

Martha obediently went as directed, and 
peered through the narrow crack in the direction 
her tall sister indicated. What she saw was a 


IN DUE SEASON 


170 

quiet picture enough, and a pretty one too — far 
too quiet and too pretty to be taken in as tragic 
a manner as Miss Elvira’s. 

In a breezy little room across the hall a young 
girl in a long apron, with a paint-brush or two 
through her knot of brown hair, held up to view 
a heap of some soft, blue stuff that fell to her 

feet, and which 
she was at the 
moment carefully 
drawing up and 
folding. Before 
her, rather stiff 
and awkward, 
stood a thin, 
stoop-shouldered 
little figure in a 
shabby gown. 

From their safe 
retreat behind the 
narrow crack the two sisters saw that heap of 
soft blue compactly rolled, wrapped, and tied ; 
saw Dorris in the most carelessly laughing way 
place it on the arm of the shabby little woman ; 
saw her walk the length of the hall, chattering 
gayly, bid her visitor good-bye at the head of the 
stairs, and return rather thoughtfully to her own 
room, which she entered for a moment before 



IN DUB SEASON 1 71 

running up the next flight to put her attic- 
studio to rights. 

“ That was her lovely new sateen ! ’’ Miss 
Martha exclaimed in a hushed and frightened 
voice. As for poor Miss Elvira, she sat down, 
for once speechless, and fanned herself while she 
rocked violently. 

“Is she paid up on her board money?” Miss 
Martha ventured to ask. 

“ Oh, my, yes ! I’ve got no complaint to 
make. She’s always prompt with her board 
money. But feedin’ ain’t all a young girl needs. 
What pleasure does she get ? What nice clothes ? 
What money laid up for a rainy day?” And 
with wrath tempered by a certain mournfulness. 
Miss Elvira stalked downstairs to the dining 
room. 

Her ire was scarce appeased when, a week 
later, Dorris came in at tea time, radiant, smil- 
ing, and exclaimed with delight : “ Mrs. Hayden 
has sold her pretty little study of sweet peas ; 
and her ‘ Road to the River ’ looks lovely framed, 
and will be sure to go soon too.” 

“What sales are you making?” somebody 
asked. 

Dorris flushed. “ I haven’t been doing much,” 
she said apologetically. “ I have so little time — 
teaching, you know.” 


172 


IN DUE SEASON 


“Teaching one pupil,” Miss Elvira sniffed, 
“and for charity too,” she added under her 
breath. 

Dorris, who did not hear all of the sentence, 
laughed lightly. “ Come, now, it isn’t quite so 
bad as that,” she said gayly. “ There are some- 
times even — three,” and her eyes twinkled. 

“You said yourself that it took a class of 
eight or ten to pay expenses,” Miss Elvira re- 
torted triumphantly. 

Dorris came as near looking annoyed as she 
could. “ I beg you will not mind. Miss Elvira,” 
she said, adding brightly, “it can’t be cloudy 
always.” Then she turned abruptly to Miss 
Martha. “ Please,” she coaxed, “ may I have 
quite a little bunch of your beautiful pansies to- 
morrow — especially one or two of those fragrant 
white ones ? ” 

“Indeed you may,” Miss Martha consented 
heartily. “I do hope,” she said to her sister 
afterward, “that she’ll make a beautiful study 
of them, and sell it for a good, big sum.” 

They saw her going out the next afternoon, 
carrying the pansies carefully sheltered from the 
late afternoon sun, and they could only guess 
what became of them. 

Time went on, and from Miss Elvira’s point 
of view matters grew worse and worse. 


IN DUE SEASON 


173 


Dorris was growing thin and “ run down.” 
Her once flourishing class had dwindled to 
almost no one, the greater number of pupils 
having gone off for their summer vacations, in 
several cases leaving their tuition bills unpaid 
behind them. There was little demand for 
paintings now, even had she taken time to do 
them ; and all of her energies seemed directed 
toward helping “that backboneless little Mrs. 
Hayden,” who alone took long half days of her 
time, week after week. 

One morning in the first of August, Miss 
Elvira, entering Dorris’ room with an armful of 
towels, found her crying bitterly. “What on 
earth ! ” she exclaimed, for Dorris idle at ten in 
the morning was hardly less astonishing than 
Dorris in tears. 

“ I know she is sick,” the girl wailed despair- 
ingly. “ I was afraid it was too much for her, 
caring for all those children at home, and work- 
ing so hard here. Many a time. Miss Elvira, she 
has begun at five in the morning, washing or 
ironing, or making things ready to leave, and 
has reached here by nine o’clock to work hard 
all day. She looked like a ghost yesterday.” 

“ So do you ! ” Miss Elvira exclaimed, flinging 
the towels into place with an impatient swish. 
“ You’re a nice pair ! ” 


174 


IN DUE SEASON 


Without further effort at consolation she 
jerked herself from the room, and quite as testily 
jerked the house door behind her a few minutes 
later, and went swiftly down the street. The 
very ribbons on her bonnet stood erect and 
bristling ; one hand tightly gripped a small 
covered basket ; and when finally she reached 
the hot little house, without shade or yard room, 
at whose door she knocked, no avenging Nemesis 
could have looked grimmer. 

“Mrs. Hayden live here?” 

“ Yeth, ’um,” a small child answered, cower- 
ing back, and calling “ Mamma,” in half fright- 
ened fashion. 

Mrs. Hayden herself appeared at almost the 
same instant. “Yes, ma’am,” she replied to the 
stream of questions her visitor asked. “ Mr. 
Hayden’s mother has written for us to come 
there. They think maybe the leg can be saved 
yet. The “ Road ” is going to pay for the treat- 
ment ; and the fare on the cars won’t cost us 
nothing. Besides, I have saved up a little. It 
is all very sudden. I didn’t get a chance to let 
Miss Dorris know. Johnny Burns was going to 
take her word to-night, after his work.” 

Nemesis had by this time so relaxed that by 
the aid of the downy peaches in her basket she 
had drawn the children to her side. 


IN DUE SEASON 


175 


“ That is something they haven’t tasted since 
they left their grandmother’s, two years ago,” 
Mrs. Hayden said, smiling faintly. “ It has been 
pretty hard lately on the children. Before the 
accident we had planned to rent a little house 
out on Wood Street with a yard and some shade 
trees. I don’t know what I would a-done 
through all this trouble if it hadn’t a-been for 
Miss Dorris. What she has done for us would 
fill a big book — and her just a young girl too.” 

Miss Elvira was looking with a gaze of recog- 
nition at the children’s frocks. She had won- 
dered why Dorris never wore her brown ging- 
ham any more. The two little girls were neatly 
dressed in it. And little Tommy’s shoes ! If 
they were not Dorris’ second best button boots, 
then Miss Elvira’s spectacles deceived her. 

“ Mith Dorrith fixtht my thoup when I wath 
thick,” little Bessie piped. 

“Yes, and she brought her pansies too,” Mary 
added, “ and they was most better than the soup. 
Grandma had pansies. Bess played dolly with 
these ones, and every one had its name, and the 
prettiest one was named Dorris.” 

Here Mr. Hayden appeared upon the scene, 
limping in painfully on his crutch. He was 
a fine, manly-looking fellow. “ Money couldn’t 
pay for what Miss Dorris has done,” he said with 


IN DUE SEASON 


176 

his face aglow, “ but if ever I get on my feet 
again, it shall do what it can toward provin’ our 
gratitude. Wife’s kep’ strict account of the les- 
sons. She’s the grandest girl I ever heard of, is 
Miss Dorris ! ” 

“Yes,” agreed Miss Elvira, rising to go, 
“ but,” she added absent-mindedly, “ she’s a good 
deal of a fool. I’ll take her your message, Mrs. 
Hayden.” 

“ I don’t like her,” said Mary when the door 
had closed. 

“ She means all right,” the mother declared 
assuringly, and little Bess with her white teeth 
buried in a juicy peach, nodded her approval. 

Miss Elvira’s spirits were certainly sorely 
taxed in the days that followed, for Dorris’ 
clouds grew heavier and her poor little pocket- 
book lighter with each succeeding week. Her 
stern arbiter was angrily conscious that the last 
payment of board money had left her with not a 
dollar to her name, and with little prospect of 
earning more until October and the summer 
tourists returned. 

One evening her place was vacant at the tea 
table. “She has a raging headache,” Miss 
Martha explained. “ She hasn’t eaten to amount 
to anything for two weeks, and she works as 
faithful with those three pupils that straggle in 


IN DUK SEASON 


177 


one at a time, as if each one was a whole 
prompt-payin’ class. She is all used up, and she 
needs a change. She ain’t very strong, nohow.” 

“ I have been urging and urging her,” old Mr. 
Simpkins said, “ to spend September up at the 
lake with my wife and daughters. The girls are 
anxious to have her, and it would do her a 
world of good, be just the rest and change she 
needs. The idea of fooling along here with 
only three pupils all this hot weather, when she 
has been working without a rest for three years ! 
I don’t see why she so persists in staying.” 

“ Well, I see ! ” flared Miss Elvira ; and then 
she went out with a bread plate and did not 
return. 

“ Something has got to be done,” she ex- 
claimed the next morning, as she went slowly up 
to Dorris’ room with the morning mail. “ Two 
letters for you,” she said shortly, tossing them 
in to the girl who sat with her head in her 
hands at the window. 

Dorris came back from visions of that coqI 
and lovely lake with its beautiful sketching, its 
sails, its sweet air, and its manifold delights, and 
took up the letters with a sigh. “ If I only had 
twenty big, round dollars,” she said with a little 
gasping breath. Then some enclosures fell out 
of the note she unfolded, and she read : 

M 


178 


IN DUE SEASON 


My Dear Miss Dorris : 

I have just discovered this unpaid bill among 
Georgie’s papers. Will you pardon her neglect ? 
I enclose eight dollars. Yours, 

W. H. Norton. 

“ Oh ! ” Dorris exclaimed, and in her surprise 
she nearly forgot the stiffly scrawled envelope 
still unopened in her lap. When she remem- 
bered it and shook out its contents, a small, yel- 
lowish paper fell into view. “For forty-four 
lessons,” it said, “ at fifty cents a lesson, twenty- 
two dollars.” 

Small scowls of perplexity came into the 
girl’s face, and these grew to deeper amazement 
when, from a carefully sealed, enclosed envelope, 
she drew a crisp twenty-dollar bill folded fra- 
ternally with its two-dollar associate. “ How 
rash to send it in currency ! ” she first exclaimed, 
which proved — Miss Elvira to the contrary — 
that Dorris did have some business sense. Then 
she read : 

Deer Miss Dorris : 

We are doin’ fine the doctor says husband’s 
leg will get cured he is already well enough to 
run on the Engine and has got a fine job. I can 
easy pay you for my lessons now. Mother when 
she herd about you wanted to advance the 
money short off and take it back when husband 


IN DUE SEASON 


179 


draws his first pay. We can never repay yon 
for your kindness. Mother thinks my Painting 
is a perfect meerkul. I owe everything to you. 
The children sends there love. 

Your thankfull friend, 

Mrs. Hayden. 

Dorris smiled, read the note again, and then, 
like the dear, delighted girl she was, broke into 
a flood of happy tears. 

Miss Elvira heard the choking sound and came 
swiftly across the hall. Miss Martha after her. 

For explanation, Dorris held forth the stiff 
little note and the rattling greenbacks. 

“ What have you got to say now, Martha ? ” 
Miss Elvira asked unthinkingly. “ Didn’t I say 
that family of aspirin’ young beggars was honest 
as the day ? ” 

Miss Martha, who had never breathed a word 
to the contrary, sighed with a sort of weak 
ecstasy : 

“ Now Dorris can go to the lake ! It’s gospel 
truth, what it says, ‘ Cast thy bread upon the 
waters : for thou shalt find it after many days.’” 


XIX 


A HEART LESSON 


^I^UIyU PAGE rushed in, “out of the wet,” 
iMK shaking the bright drops from her curls, 
J I1l/| and laughing light-heartedly. 

“ Did you ever see such a sudden, im- 
pertinent shower ? It came pelting at me from 
a clear, blue sky, and drove me right out of the 
cherry tree. Oh ! ” — with a sudden change of 
voice — “ I beg your pardon. I hadn’t seen you, 
Mrs. Simpkins ; so dark, you know, coming in 
from outside,” and Lulu dropped into a willow 
chair not far from the window where her mother 
sat talking with the Widow Simpkins. 

“ What a dretful big girl to be climbin’ cherry 
trees ! ” the Widow Simpkins was thinking se- 
verely, but she replied to the girl pleasantly 
enough, and turned again to Mrs. Page to take 
up the dropped conversational thread. 

“Well, that’s just how the matter stands, Mrs. 
Page. The doctors can’t seem to see into the 
case at all. She’s just a little rack o’ bones, 

i8o 


A HEART EESSON 


l8l 


lyin’ there day in and day out. She don’t eat 
more’n a bird, can’t sleep, and can’t even turn in 
the bed only on her best days.” 

“ Poor little thing ! Poor little thing ! ” Mrs. 
Page interrupted sympathetically, before the 
widow went on. 

“ They’ve been here in Englewood three 
months, and in all the time that child hasn’t 
been off her back. She gets very lonely too. 
They don’t know anybody to speak of here ; 
can’t get out to get acquainted. The mother is 
always with the sick girl, the grandmother doin’ 
the work, and the father a close-toilin’ me- 
chanic.” 

“ How old is the child ? ” 

“ Thirteen, they say ; but she’s such a little 
wasted thing, with her big innocent blue eyes, 
she don’t look a day over ’leven.” 

“ Thirteen ! Just Eulu’s age ! Think of liv- 
ing such a life, Eulu — shut up in one room for 
three months, suffering all the time, and with 
nothing to amuse her or to make one day dif- 
ferent from another ! ” 

“ Well, ’tain’t so bad now, you know,” Mrs. 
Simpkins said hastily. “I go there twice a 
week in the afternoons, and Miss Brooks once, 
and we take turn about reading a good book my 
father left me, a history of the lives of the ear- 


i 82 


A HEART EESSON 


Her saints. She’s such a patient little saint her- 
self, I thought the book was kind o’ fittin’.” 

Just then a burst of sunshine flooded the 
room, as though to hunt out this patient little 
saint and crown her with glory. 

Ivulu caught up the book she had dropped — 
a cherished copy of “Little Women ” — and has- 
tened out to 
her haunt in 
the cherry 
tree, where, 
high up on 
an impro- 
vised seat, 
she spent 
many fleeting 
^ hours, looking like 
some big, bright bird 
among the gleaming cher- 

If ever there lived a happy, wide-awake, fun- 
loving girl, that girl was Lulu Page. “ A tom- 
boy, you know,” her best friends said, “ but so 
sweet and loving and merry that you don’t 
mind her pranks at all.” 

Now this happy “ tomboy ” was settling lazily 
against her cherry chair back, preparatory 
to another dip into that most delightful of 



A HEART lesson 


183 

stories. She read one page, perhaps, and then 
bang ! went the leaves together, while a petu- 
lant, “ Oh, dear ! ” escaped the rosy lips. 

“ Why need I try to make myself miserable 
because that poor little ghost is?” she asked 
irrelevantly ; but the cherries didn’t seem to 
know, and the saucy catbird, deliberately pick- 
ing the finest of the ripe fruit, only twitched its 
head from side to side and scolded at her. 

“ The lives of the earlier saints ! ” exclaimed 
the girl, her words ringing out so indignantly 
that the catbird, startled, flew away. “ I shouldn’t 
try to live ; I should just die outright ! The 
monotony would kill me if the sickness didn’t. 
Not to race, or tear around, or play tennis, or 
ride my wheel — oh, good gracious, it would be 
too horrible ! ‘ Poor little thing ! ’ I should say. 

I’m thankful I’ve never been sick. I hate the 
sight of a sick-room — dim, suffocating, cam- 
phory places, with rows of medicine bottles — 
nasty things ! — and rattly old pill-boxes. I 
always want to yell and screech in them, to keep 
from smothering. ‘ Lives of the saints ! ’ How 
enlivening that must be to an aching shut-in 
girl just my age ! Wonder how she’d like 
‘ Little Women ’ for a change ? ” and then Lulu 
twisted about uncomfortably, and reached across 
a gnarled limb for a bunch of the scarlet fruit. 


184 


A HEART lesson 


She didn’t eat them, even then, but sat in a 
brown study for several minutes. “ Oh, it’s no 
use arguing on all sides. I simply never could 
do it in the world. It takes gentle people in 
soft slippers to do any good in a sick-room.” 
Then she took up her book with decision and 
thought she had dropped the matter. 

What opened her Bible that night at the 
beautiful twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew ? And 
why did she toss about in bed for an hour after- 
ward instead of going directly to sleep, as was 
her comfortable custom ? “ Sick and ye visited 

me not.” How the words rang and rang in her 
head, and how solemn and dreadful they sounded. 
Unable to bear it longer, she bounced into the 
middle of the floor and lit the gas. A moment 
later, Mrs. Page, going up to bed, stopped in sur- 
prise at her daughter’s doorway. 

“Not asleep yet. Lulu ? Why is this ? ” 

Lulu rushed toward her impulsively. 
“ There ! ” with a resounding kiss. “Go on to 
bed, mater mine. It only means a sort of wres- 
tling-match, that’s all ; and to-morrow I’m going 
nursing.” 

Mrs. Page looked inclined to ask questions, 
but thinking better of it, kissed the bright-eyed 
“ wrestler ” and left her to herself, confident that 
the next day would explain things satisfactorily. 


A HEART LESSON 


185 

So it did. It was a beautiful, clear morning, 
just the sort of day I^ulu loved best for tramp- 
ing through the roads or rowing on the river. 
Her mother was correspondingly surprised there- 
fore when she appeared, hatted and gloved, a 
book in her hand and a dainty basket of fresh 
flowers on her arm, to announce demurely : 

“I’m going in to town, mamma.” 

“ ‘ Where are you going, my pretty maid ’ ? ” 
the mother asked, quoting lyulu’s pet jingle. 

“ ‘ I’m going a-nursing, kind sir, she said,’ ” 
sang Lulu brightly in return. “No, mamma, 
not exactly nursing, but I’m going to see that 
sick girl — just got her address from Mrs. Simp- 
kins — to see if I can’t give her some different 
doses from the kind she has been having.” 

Mrs. Page looked her approval. “ I am glad 
to hear it. Lulu,” she said. “I have thought of 
that poor child all the morning, and have wished 
sincerely that you would go to see her, but I 
know how you hate such things.” 

“ Yes’m ; that’s what I wrestled about,” said 
Lulu, with an odd little laugh, and then she 
hurried off. 

“ Laura, here is some one to see Madge,” 
called the invalid's grandmother up the stairway 
to the sick-room ; and in a moment Lulu, feel- 


A HEART EESSON 


1 86 

ing a trifle nervous and queer about her heart, 
was tiptoeing in. 

The white little figure on the bed half turned, 
an unconscious sigh of pain escaping her, to see, 
not prim Miss Brooke or the widow Simpkins, 
but the freshest, sweetest, rosiest girl, with a 
smile on her face, and a fragrant, flowery scent 
all about her. 

Madge gave a little glad cry and opened her 
lips to speak, but not a sound escaped them, only 
two great happy tears rolled down the wasted 
cheeks from the big, blue eyes. 

“ I’m afraid I’ll throw you into a fever, I’m 
such a noisy thing,” Tulu said solicitously ; 
“ but I couldn’t bear to think of your lying here 
sick while I romped over whole acres of country, 
and so I came and brought some of the country 
with me. See, here is a sprig of lemon verbena 
— nearly all girls love that — and here is a bit of 
bark with a pretty clump of ferns growing to it, 
and here are flowers, and — have you read ‘ Little 
Women’?” 

What a morning that was. Such gay stories 
as Lulu told of fishing parties and book clubs, 
and of how the new calf “went for” big Bert 
Brown who had teased it, and butted him right 
into the high board fence. 

Lulu enjoyed her second reading of “Little 


A HEART LESSON 


187 

Women ” almost more than the first, it was so 
pleasant to see the eager interest of the little 
invalid. Twelve o’clock came before they could 
believe it, and when Lulu had gone, Madge lay 
there feeling that it must all have been a happy 
dream, with only the cool, dewy flowers left as 
realities. 

“Mamma,” she said brightly, “it has made 
me feel like wanting to get well. I didn’t care 
before, but now, if the new doctor can help me, 
how glad I’ll be, and how hard I’ll try.” 

She did try, and the new doctor did his best, 
and Lulu went again and again, and between 
times she wrote odd little letters, and the other 
girls wrote them. Pleased Papa Burton said it 
was the queerest post office he ever saw, where 
stories and flowers and notes and milk-weed pods, 
and once even a pet gosling passed through. 
Then Madge herself grew able to write, holding 
a flat book against her knees, and how happy 
that made her bevy of anxious correspondents. 

The happiest time of all came when the good 
doctor pronounced his little patient actually on 
the sure, if slow, road to recovery. The girls 
had a gentle jubilee in the now sunny sick-room, 
and many times Lulu recalled her first visit and 
the memorable words that impelled her to make 
it. 


A HEART EESSON 


1 88 

“Oh, I’m so glad — so glad I came!” she said, 
as she kissed Madge good-bye that night. 

“ So am I, you darling. I believe the good 
Lord sent you.” 

“ I know it,” Lulu answered solemnly. “ Some 
day when you visit my cherry-tree nest I will 
tell you all about it.” 

All the way home in the twilight her heart 
was singing, “ Sick and ye visited me,” and the 
words made her nervous no longer ; they were 
only sweet and gracious and tender, for the 
voice of the Master she had tried to obey was 
vibrating in them. 


XX 


HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 


“Home again, home again, 

From a foreign shore.” 

RANG caroled the words airily, having 
dropped with an excited little laugh into 
the easiest chair in the handsome rooms. 
One quick toss had landed her hard- 
earned diploma in one direction, and her fan in 
another, and now, with pretty exclamations of 
surprise and pleasure, she was examining the 
dainty trinkets and accompanying cards, which 
were heaped about her. 

“ The dearest Shakespeare bracelets ! See 
Marion ! And this vinaigrette ; isn’t it a 
beauty ? ” 

“Then it is worth while to be a sweet g.g. is 
it?” Ed said with mock seriousness. “You 
may forget the signs of the zodiac and the Eatin 
name for chickweed, but the silver beads and 
the flowers and the trinkets, never !” 

“Anyhow, if there were no trinkets, nor 

189 



190 HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 

flowers, nor ‘ nuffin,’ I’d be glad to be home 
again.” 

“ Why, you haven’t been away ! ” matter-of- 
fact little Beth insisted. “That is, you haven’t 
been any farther away than the opera house.” 

“Ah, my small sister, that is all you know 
about it,” Franc laughed. “ For months and 
months I have soared off on rhetorical flights, 
scaled the dizzy heights of astronomy, roamed 
through the thorny flowerland of the botanist, 
dug into the hard mines of the mathematician, 
and floated dizzily upon seas of thin, white 
goods, feather fans, and silk ribbons. Why, I 
hardly know whether the dinner hour is one or 
six, whether the library floor is carpeted or 
waxed, whether papa plays chess in the evening, 
or reads ‘ Napoleon and his Marshals.’ I have 
been gone so long in fact that I shall have to be 
newly introduced all over the dear old house.” 

“We shall all be glad to meet and to know 
again our Eugenia Franc, the dear, bright girl 
of whom we felt so proud to-day,” said Mother 
Bayliss with a fond hand upon Franc’s brown 
curls. “ It will seem good just to rest for a while. 
Don’t you think so? ” 

“ That it will, mother mine, for I am tired 
out ; and now that the race is over, I feel as limp 
as these poor, drooping roses.” 


HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 191 

She did not look like that, certainly, with her 
fair, flushed face, her dancing eyes, and the 
saucy curls flowing back from her forehead. 
Rather more like a wilted blossom looked Mar- 
ion, whose white face and dark-rimmed eyes gave 
too convincing evidence of physical weariness. 

“ Never mind. Franc, a month at Rake Mac- 
Tenlar will make you forget that you ever 
burned the midnight oil or skewed your forehead 
into Greek letters,” Ed said consolingly. 

Certainly the prospect of that delightful sum- 
mer at Eake MacTenlar went far toward smooth- 
ing out the forehead of the tired student. But 
what of the week that intervened ? Franc de- 
cided to make it a time of thorough rest, that she 
might feel vigorous enough to enjoy the delights 
of wood and lake when they were within reach. 

The very next morning she began. There 
was a glorious breeze where the big hammock 
swung on the side porch. There she stretched 
at full length, and dozed, and read, and hummed 
gay little snatches of college glees. Once in a 
while Marion passed by the window, her arms full 
of books or clothing. Occasionally little Beth 
looked out too — Beth, who had Marion’s great 
honest eyes and merry smile, and who carried 
similar if smaller loads of freshly ironed clothes 
or boxes or books. 


192 


HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 


“What on earth are you two girls doing?” 
Franc asked presently, one slender finger on the 
paragraph she was reading. The girls had van- 
ished, but Mother Bayliss, her apron bristling 
with pins and needles, answered for them : 

“We are just beginning the packing, dear. 
Getting ready for camp is no small undertaking ; 
and the house must be left all ready for the 
cleaning in the fall.” 

“ Yes’m,” Franc answered with dim compre- 
hension, and then adding that it was very de- 
lightful to read a little trash after so much mental 
oatmeal, she picked up her book. It was not 
until that evening that she considered seriously 
how much Beth and Marion had been doing. 

“ Well, mamma,” she asked, “ have we dis- 
charged both cook and house girl, and are the 
Misses Bayliss running the domestic machine ? ” 

“ Oh, dear, no ! ” said Mrs. Bayliss with a 
laugh. “ Sarah and Maggie are not discharged ; 
they are doing their regular work. It is the 
extras that Marion and Beth are doing — work 
which hired help could hardly do at all.” 

“When I think of the loads of things they 
have packed, and the quantities of camphor and 
cedar chips they have disposed of, I begin to 
fancy that there may be things about housekeep- 
ing that are as wearing as calculus.” 


HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 1 93 

Marion was too generous to agree with her, 
and only replied with loving eyes on her pretty 
sister: “If I could have shone in my studies as 
you have, sister mine, I should rest content, and 
not bother my head about anything so mundane 
as chests of winter clothes and cedar chips.” 

Franc felt an uncomfortable little pang some- 
how at the words, but dispelled it with the 
thought : “ Of course we can’t all do everything. 
I can’t be family bookw6rm and family house- 
help too. Marion is just cut out for such 
work.” 

Marion, whether “ cut out for such work ” or 
not, went on in her own uncomplaining way 
day after day, getting ready the boxes of dishes 
and bed clothing which were to go north to the 
camp at Lake MacTenlar, and the clothes, the 
curtains, and the bedding, which were to be left 
at home in Carrollton. 

During the warm evenings before their de- 
parture, merry crowds of young people called, 
and it was generally the case that tired Marion 
asked to be excused, while Franc entertained the 
guests in her own pretty, rippling way, and felt 
what an advantage it was to have one member 
of the family ready to bear “the social bur- 
dens.” 

“ You don’t know how I enjoy the home life 

N 


194 HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 

again,” she said one night to tall Helen Rand, 
who had dropped in on some errand, as she 
passed. 

“Yes,” Helen answered sympathetically, “and 
I can readily guess how glad the home is to wel- 
come you back, and what a help you must be in 
it. These are busy times of course, with all the 
packing and sewing.” 

“ Ye-es,” Franc answered, and she blushed a 
little down under her brown curls. Only to 
herself she made confession that she didn’t per- 
haps do much in the home. “But then they 
don’t mind,” she reasoned. “ They don’t really 
expect it of me. Marion is used to it and likes 
it. Soon as I’m rested I’ll study hard, for I 
mean to grow into a fully developed, fine, strong 
woman, physically, mentally, and morally.” 

So Marion went on working and Franc idling 
until, arrangements complete, they were off for 
Fake MacTenlar. Then there was all the work 
of preparing the camp for its long summer 
occupancy, a task in which Marion, Beth, Ed, 
Donald, and Mother Bayliss shared with equal 
energy. 

Meanwhile Franc wandered off with book or 
pencil through the long happy day. No one 
seemed to expect anything else of her. They 
had grown accustomed to treating her as a sunny 


HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 1 95 

little guest of the family, and she herself was 
thoroughly content to be so treated. Even when 
faithful Sarah grew ill, and the heavy work of 
the camp fell upon the home hands, it scarcely 
seemed to occur to Franc that she could be of 
any assistance. Marion cooked and swept, 
Marion washed great stacks of dishes ; and 
Franc, offering once to wipe the teacups, felt a 
glow of satisfaction at the thought that she had 
really earned the gratitude Marion expressed. 

One day something happened. Sarah, still 
sick, was lying on her cot in one of the smaller 
tents ; Mother Bayliss and the girls were doing 
the hot routine of work ; the boys were carrying 
water and bringing wood — in the midst of it 
all the old ferryman crossed the lake and depos- 
ited upon Point Bayliss a large, grand-looking 
woman and a trunk. 

“AuntEaura!” * 

Everybody sounded the exclamation at a 
breath in a glad chorus. Wherever she went 
helpful, sensible Aunt Eaura was “a tower of 
strength.” 

“ Where is little Franc ? ” she asked, after the 
first greeting. 

“ Franc ? She is off with a party of young 
folks exploring Shut-in Cove,” somebody an- 
swered. 


196 HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 

Aunt I^aura glanced about at the work yet to 
be done, and raised her fine eyebrows. In half 
an hour, enveloped in a large, brown apron, she 
was hard at work in the kitchen with Marion, 
noting that loved niece’s sweet, unselfish face, 
while she talked brightly of her last trip through 
Scotland and all the wonderful things she had 
seen. 

“It is like a beautiful lesson,” Marion said, 
when the last dish was washed and the last pan 
put in place. “ How Franc would have enjoyed 
it!” 

“Why Franc more than Marion?” Aunt 
Faura asked. 

“ Oh, not that she could have enjoyed it more ; 
it is only that she knows so much already about 
those places that she would have seemed a more 
appreciative listener.” 

Aunt Laura's smile was somewhat incredulous. 
“ So Franc graduated in June?” she said. 

“ Oh, yes, with the highest honor 1 ” 

“ And you, dear, why did you never finish ? ” 

For an instant a shade crossed the fair face, 
and then Marion replied simply, “ Dr. Raybourn 
forbade it. It was a matter of health.” 

“ And you are going to iron to-morrow ? ” 

“ Well, you see, auntie, it is the most impossi- 
ble thing to get help out here. We did find a 


HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 


197 


woman to wash, but she couldn’t be persuaded 
to come another day to iron. Our doing it is a 
matter of necessity. By next week we may be 
able to get some one from the city.” 

Aunt Laura made no reply, but she thought 
some long, long thoughts. 

Franc did not return until late in the after- 
noon. “ Such a lovely time ! ” she exclaimed 
radiantly. “ Dearest little lunch at Dr. Deland’s 
cottage, and a delicious afternoon on the water ! 
I rowed two miles, and have developed, besides 
muscle, a hearty appetite for those fresh berries 
and Marion’s light muffins.” 

Already she had dropped into a seat at the ta- 
ble, and was pushing back her light sleeves that 
they might not dip into the butter or cream. 
Marion, flushed from the kitchen Are, brought 
in the hot, crisp muffins. 

“ That’s right, little girl,” said Aunt Laura to 
Franc ; “ you need to be strong in a country 
where cooks are as scarce as ostriches. I sup- 
pose you and Marion take turns about in the 
kitchen. You look better able to stand your 
day than Marion does hers.” 

Franc looked quickly at her sister. “ Oh, it 
is only where studies are concerned that Marion 
is not strong,” she said. “ See what roses she has 
in her cheeks. And she loves such work, Aunt 


198 HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 

Laura. I don’t ! It really doesn’t seem to be 
my forte.” 

Aunt Laura stifled the indignant words that 
rose to her lips and replied quietly : “ A passion 
for hot work in hot weather is rather unusual, is 
it not ? Has Beth also this craving for dish 
washing and cooking ? She seems to have been 
pretty busy too.” 

Franc’s face grew a degree warmer, although 
the words were cool and slow. “Aunt Laura 
doesn’t understand the difference in our natures,” 
she thought. Aloud she replied, “ I feel it a 
duty to do mental rather than manual training, 
auntie.” 

The auntie said no more, but resolved that 
her pretty little niece should receive new ideas 
as to her duty before she left Lake MacTenlar. 
Mother Bayliss, when questioned as to Franc’s 
share in the work, answered leniently : “Oh, 
Franc is young, you know, just fresh from her 
books, and perhaps a little thoughtless. It will 
all come right in time.” 

“Indeed it must,” was Aunt Laura’s inward 
comment, “ if my interest in the matter avails 
anything.” 

The next morning she met Franc as that 
young lady, tennis racket in hand, was starting 
off toward Dr. Deland’s attractive cottage. 


HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 1 99 

“ More mental training, Franc ?” she asked, and 
Franc did have the grace to blush as she an- 
swered, “ Oh, well, one must be strong before 
one is able to do much mental work. Tennis is 
splendid exercise. Don’t you think so, auntie ? ” 

“ That I do ! ” Aunt Faura answered heartily ; 
“ but there is something I so much wish you to 
do for me. Franc, if you are willing to give up 
the tennis for one morning.” 

“Why, certainly,” Franc answered, with the 
quick, bright smile that came so naturally to 
her. “ I would be ashamed if I were too selfish 
to deny myself a trifling pleasure to serve you.” 

Aunt Faura looked rather taken aback for a 
moment by the prompt frankness and good na- 
ture of the reply. “Surely it must be gross 
thoughtlessness and some honestly mistaken 
ideas that make her so selfish,” she decided, and 
immediately explained the “something” she 
wanted done, a something to open the eyes of 
the blind little girl. 

“ It is an odd request I have to make. Franc, 
but I believe I can trust you to do what I want 
done, and that without question. I want you to 
make faithful note this morning of all that 
Marion does and says — even her expression 
when it is possible to get it without attracting 
her attention,” 


200 


HOW FRANC TOOK NOTKS 


“ How funny ! ” Franc exclaimed involun- 
tarily ; “ but you always did do such funny 
things, Aunt Laura dear. Written notes ? All 
right. I’m equal to it. In our lecture courses 
everybody admitted that I could take notes the 
fastest.” 

“It is eight o’clock now,” Aunt Laura said, 
“ and of course we lose a good deal of time, as 
Marion got up at six. But begin now.” 

So Franc, with pencil and note-book, the lat- 
ter hidden in a volume of poetry, took an easy- 
chair between the dining-room and kitchen tents, 
and prepared to do some quiet observing. 

There wasn’t much that she hadn’t seen be- 
fore at different times. First, Marion scraping 
plates and carrying loads of dishes from dining 
room to kitchen. Franc began to count the 
number of times she walked back and forth with 
dishes — eleven she found it was — before she 
came with a broom to sweep out the big tent. 
After that she fed the old watch-dog, and calling 
Beth began to wash the dishes. 

Mother Bayliss was not about. “ Strange she 
isn’t helping,” Franc thought ; but peeping far- 
ther into the dining room she discovered that 
busy woman sprinkling and folding the clothes 
— “a mountain of them,” Franc thought. 

She had to move her seat then to see better 


Franc began to count tlic times.’’ I’age ‘iOn. 







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HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 


201 


into the kitchen, where Marion washed the piles 
of dishes, pans, and kettles. It was rather tedi- 
ous mechanically counting the plates and plat- 
ters, and the number of times she lifted the 
heavy kettle to scald a panful of crockery ; so 
Franc began to watch her face instead. She 
had never noticed its looking so tired before. 
It seemed quite white, except when flushed with 
some sudden exertion or heat ; and now and 
then Marion pushed back the stray locks from 
her forehead, as though their soft fluttering 
pained her. Franc noted it all diligently while 
Marion straightened the wood box, filled the 
kettle, called Donald to bring water from the 
lake, washed the table and dish towels, and 
swept the floor. 

“ Now she will sit down and rest,” Franc 
thought. But she did not. She went to the 
great ice chest just outside the dining-room 
screen, and began to remove butter jars, meat, 
and pans of milk, preparatory to washing it out. 
It made Franc tired just to watch her bending 
over and lifting the heavy things, and she felt 
relieved when the hard task was done ; but after 
all it didn’t seem to make much difference for 
the next thing seemed just as hard. “Good- 
ness ! To see her lifting that clumsy ironing 
board and dragging it across the dining room ! ” 


202 HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 

“ Don’t begin the ironing yet, dearie,” Mother 
Bayliss called. “ Sit down and shell the peas 
first ; that will rest yon.” 

“ But, mamma, Beth or Donald can shell the 
peas as well as I, while the ironing — well, you 
know there is a good deal of it, and it is better 
to get it done before the sun gets higher, and 
while there is a breeze from the lake.” 

So Beth took the basket of peas and went out 
to a hammock under the birch trees, while 
Marion began at the top of the huge basket of 
clothes. 

“ Dear me ! I didn’t know I had three white 
skirts in the wash,” Franc soliloquized with real 
remorse, “ and such fussy ones too ! ” 

While she watched Marion straightening out 
the flounces and the points of lace and embroid- 
ery and pressing the hot iron over them. Aunt 
Laura passed with broom and dustpan toward 
the bedroom tents. 

“ Isn’t it nice that Marion loves it so, all this 
sort of thing ? ” she said in the most innocent 
way to Franc ; and that rosy little note-taker 
began to feel an odd sensation about the region 
of her heart. 

Marion had finished the three skirts and had 
begun a long night-dress, when suddenly, un- 
conscious that observant eyes were on her, she 


HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 


203 


pressed her hot hand to her tired back, and with 
a little cry of pain or exhaustion, sank into a 
chair near by. In another instant, hearing 
Mother Bayliss coming with a second ironing 
board, she stood again quickly, and began a 
cheery little song, while she pressed hard upon 
the tucks of the dainty gown-yoke. 

“ If I ever bring anything but untrimmed 
muslin up here again ! ” Franc said under her 
breath. 

It was the hardest note-taking she had ever 
done. Nothing in Dr. Hayne’s lecture room 
could have compared with it. She counted up 
the articles Marion had ironed and held her 
breath at the sum total. That cunning blouse 
which she had worn boating with Stella Cassell, 
the pretty wrapper in which she had lolled long 
hours in the hammock — and Marion ironed on 
with aching back until time to fry the fish 
which Ed had caught and cleaned for dinner. 

Before Marion and Mother Bayliss had fin- 
ished getting “ that dreadful dinner,” the mist 
about Franc’s eyes made the lines in her note- 
book dim, and though she held to her promise 
heroically, and watched her sister and wrote her 
notes until high noon, when that time had come 
she rushed headlong to her own tent corner and 
cried as only a contrite sinner could. 


204 HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 

Aunt Ivaura was not surprised that Franc was 
late to dinner. Neither was any one else, for 
that matter ; Franc was often too engrossed in 
book or pastime to be prompt. The surprise 
came afterward, when a gay little bevy called 
to take Franc sailing, and she gratefully but de- 
cidedly declined going. 

“ I mean to take a new kind of exercise this 
afternoon,” she said. “ When Sarah gets about 
again, or we find a culinary treasure in the city, 
Marion and I will be more than glad to join in 
all the frolics.” 

“ Marion and I ! ” Marion back in the dining 
room listened amazed. She to be included in 
Franc’s frolics ? A moment later her amaze- 
ment increased when sturdy “ student Franc ” 
marched her by both shoulders out to the ham- 
mock, where pillows and books and a cool 
breeze from the lake tempted to quiet and re- 
pose. 

“ There, Mistress Marion, you are not to do that 
entrancing work a minute longer ! I’d marshal 
mamma out after you, only that I am too green 
not to need an overseer. After this though, you 
uncomplaining darling, we will see if we can’t 
do some new problems in division.” 

Marion didn’t see how she could stay there 
and rest, with mamma and Franc and Beth at 


HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 205 

work, and she meant to slip back among them 
in a few moments ; but she stretched her tired 
limbs in the hammock with a sigh of utter con- 
tent, and five minutes later Franc, in her big 
apron, peeping around the side of the tent, saw 
her sound asleep, the fresh, sweet breeze stirring 
the hair about her face and swaying the ham- 
mock as gently as it did the cobweb hammocks 
swinging in the grass. 

“ I never was so tired in my life,” Franc said 
to Aunt Laura that night, “ nor so happy. That 
note-book, meant to mirror Marion, mirrored 
me instead. It made me see myself as I never 
did before, as I hope I never shall again. Oh, 
Aunt Laura, did you see that great monster of 
selfishness I saw to-day while I took these 
notes ? ” 

Aunt Laura smiled. “ I saw a little Undine 
discovering her soul,” she answered enigmatic- 
ally. 

“ Anyhow,” Franc said soberly, “ funny as it 
is, I never took a sail that gave me half the 
pleasure I found in missing that one to-day.” 

Aunt Laura was silent a moment ; then she 
said, with her firm hand upon Franc’s newly 
blistered ones : “ You are beginning to learn the 
sweetness of an old, old truth, and the more you 
study it the richer and happier your life will 


2o6 


HOW FRANC TOOK NOTES 


grow. You have heard the old text, dear ; you 
may prove it each day that you live : ‘ He that 
resisteth pleasure crowneth his life.’ Are you 
willing to try ? ” 

Though Franc could not speak for the choke 
in her throat, the tears in her brown eyes an- 
swered for her, and Aunt Faura was more than 
satisfied. 


XXI 


HER HOME-COMING 


jyp Mamma Vance could have looked in upon 
|l them she would have been undoubtedly 
fl| astonished. Sadie sat on the great rolling 
head of the lounge, pounding a pillow 
with emphasis as she spoke. The four boys 
were grouped about her, their cheeks rather red, 
their eyes rather bright, their heads thrown 
back indignantly. When the long-suffering pil- 
low had received its final thump, and Sadie had 
drawn herself up tragically to her full height, 
Eugene asked hotly : 

“ What ever put such nonsense into your head, 
Sadie? ” 

“ It’s preposterous ! ” Jack stormed. 

Warm-hearted little Fritz was in tears. “ Ith 
a lie ! ” he wailed. 

Stanford said not a word, but his angry tread 
up and down the room spoke volumes for him. 

“Nonsense, I say!” Eugene repeated wrath- 
fully. “ Slight mother 1 Who dared say so ? 

207 


2o8 


HER HOME-COMING 


Why, Sadie Adams, there isn’t a mother in the 
world like ours. We’d do anything on earth for 
her. I speak for the crowd.” 

“ He thpeakth for me,” Fritz agreed. 

“ Do you suppose we’d mope around here and 
actually lose our appetites for the sake of the 
mother-bird if we didn’t love her and care for 
her?” Jack demanded. 

“ I jutht love gingerbread ” — this from Fritz 
— “and latht night I thimply couldn’t endure it.” 

“ Oh, let up on the gingerbread ! ” Stanford 
growled. His tramp was not conquering the ir- 
ritation he felt. “See here, Sadie, I demand as 
does Eugene, your reason for this — this accusa- 
tion.” The tramp had come to a halt. “We 
slight marmee and make her unhappy? Who 
has dared hint it ? Who has given you so ridicu- 
lous an idea ? ” 

Sadie’s severe little face relaxed ; she was the 
stern accuser no longer. “ Boys, shake hands,” 
she said, “ two at a time, please. I knew it 
couldn’t be true, but I had to satisfy my mind 
about it.” 

“ Well, just suppose you satisfy our minds,” 
Stanford snapped. He did not look any too will- 
ing to accept her overtures. 

“ Oh ! ” Sadie exclaimed, a momentary flush 
on her fair face. 


HER HOME-COMING 


209 


“Your authority, please,” Jack said loftily. 
He had an idea that he had read some such 
lofty demand in his history some place. “ Your 
authority.” 

“ Auntie Vance,” Sadie answered demurely. 

The boys started as though they had simul- 
taneously received a mental knock-down. 

“ The mater ! ” 

“ Marmee ! ” 

“Not the mother herself ! ” 

“ Gee whith ! ” 

Sadie, still demure, nodded comprehensively 
to the four. “ That’s what I said.” 

“ Oh, come now, Sadie , this is one of your 
tricks.” 

“You can’t make game of us. Cousin Sadie; 
we know you too well.” 

For answer Sadie drew from her pocket a 
much-crumpled letter and stepped with it across 
to the bright lamplight of the library table. 
“ Read that,” she said, pointing out a portion of 
the writing so familiar to the four boys. “ It 
was one of the last letters she wrote me before 
I came home.” 

This was what the boys read : 

We have decided to take our trip, Sadie, your 
uncle and I. It will be our first together in all 
our wedded life, and I know it will do us both 
o 


210 


HER HOME-COMING 


good. I have been feeling tired and worn 
lately. When the boys were little fellows, 
though they took up all my time and thought, I 
never felt it. They were so grateful and loving 
that it was real pleasure to feel myself their 
daily necessity, their friend and helper. 

It is so different now, Sadie. They are 
good boys — generous and high-principled — and 
yet many a time I choke with tears to feel that 
the entire love they gave me once is mine no 
longer. I am afraid they have outgrown me, as 
they have outgrown their knee trousers and their 
childish dependence upon me. When they 
were little lads I truly think they could not 
have slept without their good-night kisses to me, 
while now — but I shall only hurt your kind 
little heart with this kind of letter. 

Of course they love me, Sadie ; they must 
surely ! It is only natural, I suppose, for boys 
as they grow up to lose their loving little ways. 
They are not like girls. If I had a daughter, it 
might be different, perhaps ; but mother-love is 
strong, and I feel fairly starved sometimes. 
Even little Fritz forgets to snuggle up to 
mamma’s knee as he once did, or to pat her 
tired old hands. It has made me feel like a 
machine, though the duties I once had were 
heavy compared with the slight demands upon 
my time now. 

Then followed details as to the arrangements 
for the trip, the friend who had volunteered 
to keep house, and expressions of gladness that 


HER HOME-COMING 


2II 


Sadie too would be home to brighten things 
up for the dear, big boys. 

“The dear, big boys” had grown rather misty 
about the eyes. 

Sadie suddenly re-folded the letter and caught 
up her hat : “ There is I^ou at the gate. Good- 
bye, boys. Forgive my being entirely frank 
with you. I’ll see you again about this busi- 
ness.” 

When she had gone the boys were singularly 
silent. 

“ You will oblige me. Jack, if you will fall on 
me and break all my bones,” Stanford said 
slowly at last. Jack was “ the biggest of the 
big” among the boys, and weighed a hundred 
and forty. 

“ I could crawl through a knot-hole,” he re- 
plied. 

“ No, you couldn’t,” Eugene said, and though 
it was a favorite joke nobody smiled. 

Fritz, with his eleven years, his dimple, and 
his “lipthp,” had disappeared. There was hot 
gingerbread again when the tea bell rang, and 
it seemed to him less endurable than before. 

“ What was the matter with the boys ? ” Mrs. 
Beman asked her husband that night. 

“ It’s never worth while to study the motives 
of the boy, my dear. The goat, the spider, the 


212 


HER HOME-COMING 


kangaroo, are all laid down in natural history, 

but the boy ” and he wiped his hands with 

a gesture full of meaning. 

“ It is on my mind ; I don’t care,” Mrs. Be- 
man enunciated. Whenever she “ didn’t care,” 
she was taking things seriously. “ I promised 
their good mother that I would see to those boys ; 
the house was a minor matter, in fact. I must 
investigate the trouble to-morrow, for trouble 
there is, I am sure. They hadn’t even their ap- 
petites. Think what an anomaly, a boy without 
an appetite ! Mrs. Vance said hot gingerbread 
would comfort them in any distress. Why, 
Arthur,” and the little lady looked quite despair- 
ing, “ only one of them touched it — Stanford — 
and he choked and left the table.” 

Trouble indeed ! The boys pretended to sleep 
at once that night ; they had nothing to say to 
each other. Each supposed the others asleep; 
each tried to lie very quiet ; and each groaned 
at the thought that the dear, patient mother had 
been deeply hurt by their treatment of her, 
when they would have resented the slightest an- 
noyance caused her by any other. Love her? 
Each groaned harder at the reflection that his 
own conduct was to blame for her doubt of it. 

Suddenly there was a stir in the far corner. 
Fritz had bounced out of bed and down upon 


HER HOME-COMING 


213 


his knees. There was a dim light in the room. 
Three boys might have been discerned raised 
upon their elbows, staring. Fritz at his prayers 
a second time ! 

“ Shows his good sense,’’ said Stanford in a 
subdued whisper to Eugene, with whom he 
slept. 

“ Well, I’ve had that out,” said Eugene. “ Did 
some good too. No matter how dull my head 
is, as soon as I get to my knees the Lord sends 
me some spick and span idea. I’m going to 
sleep now ; I’ll divulge the plan to-morrow.” 

Sadie came again next day. 

“ I have an idea ! ” Eugene exclaimed with 
some force. 

“ Dew tell ! ” and Sadie laughed merrily. 
‘‘Not all by yourself, Eugene ? ” 

“ Well, no, not all by myself,” and Eugene 
looked wisely at Stanford. “ It came from our 
Best Friend last night. Let me tell you, Sadie, 
we are going to do an old German trick to begin 
our new conduct toward mamma. We are going 
to give her a real little demonstration as a wel- 
come home. I remember the time she got back 
from that district mission convention, and we 
were all playing ball on the lot and didn’t even 
come in to see her until tea time. It wasn’t be- 
cause we didn’t love her ; it was ” 


214 


HER HOME-COMING 


“ Because we were blind fools,” Stanford in- 
terrupted, 

“ But here is a point, boys,” Sadie said sud- 
denly. “ Auntie must not know that I have had 
any hand in this sight-to-the-blind business. I 
shall not even hint any help to you about your 
welcome to her. She must not suspect me. It 
must be all your own performing, straight from 
your own hearts.” With that she marched off 
down the gravel path to the gate. 

“ Of course,” shouted four boys after her. 

“ We are not going to have mamma thinking 
we have needed lessons on how to love her. 
Trust us to do it alone,” and Jack tossed his 
head. 

It was the sweetest time of the year in Ver- 
non, but October days were coming on and the 
flowers were growing scarce. “ Flowers we must 
have ! ” the boys had said, and Fritz hung over 
the late roses, the sweet alyssum, and chrysan- 
themums, as though his fondest hopes lay in 
their blooms. 

Eugene, who had graduated and was at work 
on a salary, was keeping some very bright dol- 
lars up in his collar box for a very bright purpose. 
Jack and Stanford, still in school, decided upon 
one thing at least they could do. They could 
earn money after school hours and together hire 


HER HOME-COMING 


215 


old Aunt Dinah to make one of her famous great 
cakes, with “ Welcome ” on it in chocolate frost- 
ing. 

“ IVe thought of something new ! ” Jack ex- 
claimed rushing in, quite breathless, one even- 
ing. “You know mamma has admired Mrs. 
Green’s dress window-seats. I mean to rig one 
up and have it all ready for the mater when she 
gets back.” 

“That comes in the line of my plans,” Eugene 
said with eagerness. “ I meant to get her one 
of those pretty, low sewing tables with a chair 
to suit. We will fix her room up jim-dandy ! ” 

“What can be the matter with those boys? ” 
Mrs. Beman said again. “Jack, whom I have 
always thought rather fat and lazy, is working 
like a beaver on a long window-seat up stairs in 
which his mother may lay her dresses at full 
length without crumpling them. He has asked 
me a dozen questions about the best kind of 
padding for the top of it and the prettiest color 
to cover it with, ‘ something warm and bright, 
for that’s what the mater likes.’ I never saw 
such boys.” 

She repeated that statement on the night when 
the telegram came : 

“ Be home on the 5.30 train to-morrow.” 


2i6 


HER HOME-COMING 


The boys were quite wild all the following 
day. How they did work ! Over the doorway 
within the porch there grew under their swift 
fingers a great, green arch with Mamma Vance’s 
initials in chrysanthemums on it. The roses and 
sweet alyssum went into vases for the tea table, 
the library, and the mother’s bedroom. 

“ What a knack you have, Fritz ! ” Mrs. Be- 
man said in surprise, for the flowers were beau- 
tifully arranged, and Fritz, his black eyes shin- 
ing, was putting his very soul into his loving fin- 
ger tips. 

He had emptied his bank to buy for the re- 
turning mother two of the loveliest winter rose 
plants the florist’s hothouse held. These, their 
pots decked in green, occupied places of honor 
beside the great cake on the tea table, and the 
Bo7i Silane bore amid its graceful leaves a card 
on which, in Fritz’s bold writing, were seen the 
words, “ Sweets to the sweet. From your lov- 
ing Fritz.” 

It was a chilly night, though the day had been 
clear. There were softly sputtering fires throw- 
ing up their merry flames in the gayly decked 
library and the mother’s pretty room. Just at 
five Jack and Eugene were taking a last view 
there. 

“ How she will like that window-seat ! It is 


HER HOME-COMING 


217 


pretty, if I do say it, and how the firelight 
brightens it up.” 

“ Don’t the roses look lovely ? ” 

“Doesn’t the polished table shine?” 

“ And how easy the sewing chair is ! ” 

And then with a final touch of careful, boy- 

i s h hands 
here and 
there, they 
’ joined Fritz 
and Stan- 
ford at the 
!| gate. 

“It is 
like the story 
of the prodigal 
son ; only he stayed 
at home in this case, 
and there were four of 
_ ^ him,” Jack said a little 

huskily. 

“ I’ll tell yon this, boys,” said Eugene 
stoutly, “ I have been thinking about this thing, 
and either thinking or praying has brought me 
more new ideas. I don’t believe any fellow ever 
gets too big to love his mother, and I don’t be- 
lieve, if he is an honest, manly fellow, that it 
will take away from his manliness one whit to 



2i8 


HER HOME-COMING 


show that he loves her. Bless her heart! Three 
cheers for the mater : ’Rah, ’rah, ’rah ! ” 

The ring of the cheery hurrahs sounded over 
the frosty air and reached the hack around the 
corner. There was a hard little pain at Mamma 
Vance’s heart. “ They are playing ball again,” 
she thought. “They have forgotten we are 
coming.” Then suddenly they had reached the 
gate, and four bright-eyed boys were swarming 
about her, hugging her and patting her gray 
hair as they did when they were the very littlest 
fellows. 

“ We have been as dull as owls without you, 
you darling,” Stanford said, taking the smaller 
valises, while Eugene offered her his arm grandly. 
Fritz and Jack could only help Mr. Vance with 
the shawl straps and the big valise, and prance 
like girls down the path behind “the mother- 
bird,” waiting to see her surprise and delight 
over the arch, the welcome, the flowers, and the 
general festivity of the dear old home. 

Next day when Sadie came in she started in 
amazement. “ Auntie Vance ! you are looking 
ten years younger. I think you did need a 
trip ! ” 

“ It wasn’t the trip, Sadie ; it was the boys. 
You remember what I wrote you ? It was all my 
silly imagination. They do love me. They 


HER HOME-COMING 2ig 

were so glad to see me ! Sit down, dear, and 
let me tell you all about it.” 

As pretty Sadie dropped down upon the dainty 
window-seat she couldn’t help saying, with her 
glad little laugh, “ I told you so, auntie ! I told 
you so ! ” 


XXII 


A SUNSHINE MAKER 


NNIE MACGREGOR slipped into her 
little back bedroom, sprung the latch 
on the door, and dropping into the one 
rocking-chair burst into a storm of tears. 
“ I can’t stand it ! I can’t ! I wish I were dead 
and buried or couldn’t feel or think ! Father 
sick, mother worried to death, Cathie cross, and 
the children wretched and forlorn ! If we had 
anything, anything to live for ! But what is 
there? Bad health, hard times, no pleasures 
anywhere ! Just grind and grind, and struggle 
and fret. If we had money, oh what couldn’t 
we do ! Send father South, take the burden 

from mother’s tired shoulders ” 

A brisk tapping at the door startled her to her 
feet. 

“ Annie, Annie dear, may I come in ? ” 

Annie drew the latch and opened the door. 

If it were any one else I’d say no. Miss Polly, 
but there isn’t any sense in saying no to you.” 

220 



A SUNSHINE MAKER 


221 


Then, with a woebegone smile : “ How do you 
always find out when folks get into the very val- 
ley of blackness? You pop up at the identical 
minute like a jolly little Jack-o’-lantern.” 

Miss Polly laughed a soft little laugh that did 
not grate upon the tired nerves or sore heart of 
the girl turning, red -eyed and half-defiant, from 
her. Then she said gently : “ Just now, my dear, 
you are resenting the flash of the meddlesome 
Jack-o’-lantern, for you don’t want even comfort- 
ing. Isn’t it so ? You think there is the ring 
of sounding brass about it all. Then listen, 
child, for I didn’t come to comfort but to scold. 
I have decided that a plain, sound scolding is 
what you need to bring you to your five senses 
and a brand-new,- brave, courageous spirit.” 

Annie did not speak, only the quick tears 
welled again to her eyes as she perched upon 
the bed, leaving the single chair for her guest. 

“ Do you know,” that guest went on, “ that 
you are manufacturing fog faster than a Novem- 
ber morning ? that you are becoming a worthy 
mistress of dumps and doldrums? and worst of 
all, my dear child, that the one thing your father 
most needs you are persistently defrauding him 
of?” 

“ What on earth do you mean ? ” Annie asked 
blankly, opening her wet eyes in wonder. 


222 


A SUNSHINE MAKER 


“ Sunshine,” Miss Polly responded promptly. 
“Just that and nothing more. As well expect a 
rose to blossom in a vault as a man to recover 
health and vigor in a house like this. Solemnly, 
Annie, I would rather live in a frog pond. It 
would be more cheerful, for the frogs are lively, 
splashing fellows if their song is a trifle hoarse, 
while here ! ” and she paused, rolling her eyes 
in mock despair. 

Annie smiled in spite of herself. “It isn’t ex- 
actly festive over here,” she admitted ; “ but what 
can you expect with sickness and pinching pov- 
erty ” 

“ Oh, come now, Annie, you aren’t starved or 
actually uncomfortable, and you needn’t all pre- 
pare to figure as ‘ respected remains ’ in a funeral 
just because Father MacGregor is sick. I tell 
you sepulchral gloom isn’t calculated to cheer 
him the least bit in the world. Here, child, put 
on my glasses a minute and see if you can see 
yourself as I see you,” and Miss Polly ran to the 
door, calling back, “ I will try — like the funny 
man in the concert troupe — to give you a c’rect 
imitation of Miss Annie MacGregor as she ap- 
pears before her family. Scene, the sitting 
room; time, seven o’clock of a rainy morning.” 

Then she whisked into the hall, returning in 
a moment with her face long, her eyes mourn- 


A SUNSHINE MAKER 


223 


ful, and her mouth drooping plaintively at its 
rosy corners. “ Good morning, father,” she said 
wearily, addressing the rocking-chair. “ I can 
see by your eyes that you slept little last night. 
Oh, dear, dear ! What wouldn’t I give to see 
you well and strong ! I’m afraid you’ll never 
be yourself again. Do you feel as if you could 
eat anything? ” and Miss Polly sighed deeply. 
Then she turned suddenly to Annie’s umbrella 
standing in a corner. “ Mattie, there’s a hole in 
your shoe ! Oh, I’m sure I don’t know what we 
are coming to ! This carpet is in rags and the 
paper is peeling off the dining-room wall, and 
there’s no money to get even the delicacies poor, 
sick father ought to have.” 

Miss Polly wrung her pretty, plump hands 
and stared hard at Annie. “Then,” she con- 
tinued, “ Cathie comes in, and you mourn with 
her over the wickedness of the small schoolboy ; 
and you tell your mother she is looking thinner 
every day, and that you are so afraid the mis- 
sionary society will think it is pure indifference 
that is keeping her away from the meetings.” 

Annie’s face was flushed, partly from anger, 
partly from shame. “What would you have 
me do ? Clap my hands and shout with joy be- 
cause father looks like a ghost, and the house is 
going to ruin ? ” 


224 


A SUNSHINE MAKER 


“ No ; and I wouldn’t have you laugh in- 
cessantly and without cause. There isn’t any 
sunshine in that sort of cheerfulness. It’s only 
a tawdry imitation, like red paper and a candle 
in a scenic fireplace. But I do want you to 
cultivate a little real sunshine in the house, the 
kind that will warm and comfort and bless. 
Don’t grumble, don’t lament, don’t hunt indus- 
triously for all the pricks in your rose garden. 
Look out for a little of the brightness and per- 
fume. Ah, my dear, you may coin a mint of 
gold dollars and win only wretchedness, but the 
girl who coins bright words and cheery smiles, 
who scatters sunshine and loving service, she is 
to be envied above queens, for she will apply 
the balm more quickly to sorrow and heartache, 
than all the gold dollars in the land.” 

Annie only shook her head sadly. “ I can’t 
be a nightingale if I’m born a crow. Miss Polly. 
We come of a despondent race. I can’t help it. 
I was born so.” 

“ Nonsense ! A tangle of weeds may be 
changed to a bed of mignonette. But you must 
first root out your weeds. Get rid of the old 
stock, the tears and sighs and frowns ; and plant 
the new seeds, the smiles and cheery words. 
Pretty soon there will be whole acres of blos- 
soms and butterflies where your burrs have been. 


A SUNSHINE MAKER 


225 


Try it, Annie. Think about it. Begin to-mor- 
row — now ! Good-night. I ran over for only a 
minute ” — and she kissed the girl’s hot cheek. 
“You will find that sunshine-making is blessed 
business.” 

Annie sat very still for half an hour after Miss 
Polly’s departure. “ I will begin it to-morrow,” 
she said ; and she undressed for bed with un- 
usual briskness. 

Mr. MacGregor sat as usual toasting his feet 
by the sitting-room fire when Annie ran down in 
the morning. She couldn’t help recalling Miss 
Polly’s words, “ Scene, the sitting room ; time, 
seven o’clock of a rainy morning,” and she 
glanced with almost a laugh at the gray square 
of window against which the rain trickled dis- 
mally. 

“And how is the father to-day?” she asked 
brightly. “You will be picking up soon, father 
dear, now that spring is coming. Isn’t this a 
day to make the violets grow ? ” 

The father looked up curiously, and his face 
seemed to have quite lost the weary look for a 
moment. “ I hadn’t thought of the violets, 
daughter,” he said. “I was only wondering 
how drenched the morning paper might be.” 

“The news will not be dry anyhow,” Annie* 
said, as she ran along the hall to the front porch. 

p 


226 


A SUNSHINE MAKER 


“This isn’t bad,” she called, returning. “It 
will dry out in a minute,” and she held the 
moist sheet before the crackling fire. “ Father, 
have you noticed what a trustworthy youngster 
John is growing to be? Your illness has done 
that much good, anyway. He seems to feel an 
added responsibility, as if he were temporary 
head of the house, and he doesn’t know what it 
is to leave the water pitchers or coal scuttles un- 
filled any more. Not that we can encourage you 
to stay sick as a means of cultivating the moral 
virtues of the family. You are to be out in a 
month, well and strong,” and she laid a hand 
gently upon his gray hair. 

“You are a cheerful prophet, Annie.” 

“And a true one — you wait and see. You 
haven’t looked so like your old self in six 
months.” 

She spoke truly. Cheered unconsciously by 
her hopeful tone, he took the warm paper from 
her hand, and rattled it briskly as he settled 
back to read until breakfast time. 

When grave-eyed little Mattie slipped noise- 
lessly into the room, Annie drew her into the 
hall mysteriously. “ Let us have a surprise for 
Cathie when she comes down to breakfast,” she 
whispered ; and the small girl’s face brightened. 
“ Here, slip on your rubbers, take the big um- 


A SUNSHINE MAKER 


227 

brella, and paddle down to the violet bed. I feel 
in my bones that this shower has opened a bud 
or two, and you shall gather them for Cathie’s 
plate.” 

Mattie fairly skipped under the old umbrella, 
down the garden walk ; it was so new to see 
Sister Annie smile 
like that, and so de- 
lightful to plan a sur- 
prise for somebody. 

She could hardly 
wait. Four wet and 
fragrant blossoms and 
as many gleaming 
leaves were held 
tight in her little fin- 
gers as she came 
smiling in, to be 
whisked speedily into 
the dining room by 
Annie, with whose help she arranged the dainty 
bunch and tied it with a wee ribbon. 

When Mrs. MacGregor came down the stairs 
with lagging steps, two smiling faces met her. 

“ Come, mother dearie, breakfast is all ready, 
and Jane has made your favorite muffins. Father 
says he is really hungry ; and he is looking much 
better this morning ! Isn’t it fine ? ” 



228 


A SUNSHINE MAKER 


Then a little of the shadow left Mrs. Mac- 
Gregor’s face. “ Oh, Annie ! ” was all she said, 
but there were hopes and doubts all mingled in 
the tone. 

“ Oh, you needn’t be skeptical,” said Annie, 
drawing her mother’s arm through her own. 
“ Father needs just a little encouragement from 
the home brood, and he’ll be a new man before 
he knows it. Doesn’t that coffee smell good?” 

Somehow, in spite of the pattering rain out- 
side, it seemed very bright and sunny in the 
MacGregor dining room that morning. Annie’s 
sunshine was warming its way to the clouded 
hearts of the family. 

Sober John smiled a broad, contagious smile, 
which he tried in vain to suppress, when his 
father repeated Annie’s good report of him. 
Baby Lewis caught the infection and gurgled 
contentedly ; while Cathie went off to school 
almost gayly, stepping lightly through the drizzle, 
and whiffing the fragrance of her violets with a 
sigh of content. 

Annie went about her housework with new- 
born energy, singing as she aired the beds, 
smoothed the covers, and swept and dusted the 
rooms. “ I declare, mother,” she called once, 
laughing, “this old gray wall in the parlor is 
prettier than the prettiest paper we could find. 


A SUNSHINE MAKER 


229 


Every picture shows to full advantage against it. 
There are tones in it to make an artist rave, tones 
like a soft twilight or the breast of a dove. I 
am glad we haven’t money to tempt us to spoil 
it with a lot of shiny newness.” 

“What has come over you, Annie?” the 
mother asked. “ Yesterday it gave me a heart- 
ache just to look at you, with your face so sad and 
so lined with care and worry. But to-day ” 

“To-day I am pulling up weeds,” said Annie, 
laughing rather tremulously. “Don’t ask me 
now, mother. I am a crazy gardener, perhaps ; 
but the business is new to me, and I am not 
quite sure of myself.” 

The wise mother looked thoughtful over her 
sewing. “ I think I shall like the crop, dearie,” 
was all she said. 

Indeed the weed-pulling went on in a way 
that would have sent joy to Miss Polly’s heart. 

Day after day Annie tried her best to change 
the burrs to blossoms — not always successfully, 
for she found it true that the ugly roots could 
not be turned into flowers and fragrance all at 
once. There were dark days when patience 
nearly failed her, and safety lay only in an in- 
glorious retreat to her own room. There, if she 
dropped a few shining tears, she found the help 
and comfort she needed, and went back to her 


230 


A SUNSHINE MAKER 


endeavor with the renewed strength that comes 
to them “that wait upon the I^ord.” 

It was a cool, sweet night in May when Miss 
Polly dropped in upon the circle sitting about 
the lamplight in the MacGregor sitting room. 

“ How cozy you look ! ” she exclaimed warmly. 
“ I heard old Joe, the house-cleaner, remark to- 
day in his slow drawl that, ‘ Dey ain’t no fambly 
in dis town so happy and cheerful-spirited as dem 
MacGregors.’ ” 

“ Yet, it’s funny,” said John in a puzzled way ; 
“ not two months ago we were all in the dumps, 
from father down to kewis ” 

“ And life didn’t seem to be worth living,” fin- 
ished Cathie. 

“I think,” said the father, “that I know the 
pioneer who first started to find the way through 
the clouds, and who made it easy for us to follow,” 
and he turned toward Annie, his eyes shining 
with pride and fondness. 

“ Father dear ! ” exclaimed Annie, and then 
something choked her throat, so that she could 
only hold tight to his loving hand while glad 
tears welled to her eyes. 

“ Didn’t I say you would find sunshine-making 
blessed business ? ” whispered Miss Polly as she 
took her leave. 


XXIII 


EDITH’S BETTER WAY 


S ROFESSOR MEYER tapped his baton 
with nervous quickness and the tiers of 
^ singers arose. Every eye was upon the 
^ small stick waving with rhythmical 
sweeps about the head of the emaciated little 
man. Then as one voice, the quiet melody 
sounded. It was the music of “The Eost 
Chord,” and growing fuller and stronger, it 
swept like a great, cold wave over the audience 
until, full of faith and longing, it ended in the 
climax so rich, so sweet, so organ-like. 

In heaven I shall hear that great Amen. 

There was an instant’s deathlike stillness, and 
then the applause broke forth in a storm that 
reverberated to the great, arched ceiling. 

“You deserve much of the credit,” whispered 
a smiling little woman to pretty Mrs. Farley Fair- 
fax. “ The poor old professor never could have 
managed us if you hadn’t trained us first.” 


231 


232 EDITH’S better WAY 

Mrs. Fairfax, smiling, motioned her friend to 
silence, for the professor was standing there in 
the blaze of the footlights, his hand uplifted. 

“Dear frients,” he said, “I haf no vords to 
t’ank you, yet I vant to t’ank you from mein 
heart. You haf all help me. You haf been so 
goot. For myself, for my vife, for my little one, I 
t’ank you. Andt Gott bless you, effery one.” 

The voice had trembled pitifully, and there 
were tears in the gray eyes so sunken in the long, 
pale face, as the professor stepped back ; but he 
smiled again with grateful happiness when the 
people applauded long and loud as the curtain 
fell. 

“ It was a splendid success, professor,” said the 
second violinist ; then he caught the professor’s 
arm hastily. “ Fean on me, sir. You’re a bit 
done up,” and he motioned the crowd back and 
fanned the panting man with a sheet of music. 

“Dear, dear,” sighed Edith Fairfax. “Oh, 
poor man ! It makes me positively weak to 
look at him. How pitiful it is ; what a dreadful 
case ! ” 

“Nothing but nervous excitement has kept 
him up all this evening,” said Katharine Garver. 
“There, he is better now — smiling, though he 
breathes so painfully. Oh, Mr. Jackson, how 
much ? ” and she caught the sleeve of a little 


Edith’s better way 


233 

man just bustling upon the stage, whose round 
face beamed with satisfaction. 

“ Four-hundred-dollar house, Miss Kathie,” he 
said. “ We’ll clear three hundred for him above 
all expenses,” and “the box-office ” pushed his 
way on to Professor Meyer. 

“ It will bury him nicely,” said Katharine to 
Edith on the way home, “and leave enough 

n 

“ Hush, Katharine ! How can you talk in 
that cold-blooded way? You make me feel as if 
the poor creature had been acting as musical 
director at his own funeral.” 

“Well, my dear,” said Katharine, “ his own 
funeral is a thing he considers very cheerfully 
himself. He says he wants to be buried as 
cheaply as possible to leave all he can for his 
family. They are to go back to Mannheim, 
you know.” 

“ And the doctors have said he may die at 
any minute,” said Edith, shivering at the grue- 
some thought. “We call him old, Kathie, yet 
that is only because he is so worn out with care 
and illness. Forty is young to die. Why, papa 

is forty — my dear, young, jolly, bright papa ” 

and her voice broke. 

“ Well, Edith, get it off your mind. There is 
nothing more to be done, you know. You made 


234 


Edith’s better way 


your old fiddle talk, and you sang like a bird ; 
let that comfort you.” Then, raising her voice, 
Katharine called to the little lady ahead : “ Mrs. 
Fairfax, your chorus was best of all. It made 
me creep all up and down my spine.” 

“It was wonderful. Mamma Fairfax,” said 
Edith. “You always make a success of what- 
ever you attempt,” and she gave a rapturous 
squeeze of the silken arm under the long wrap. 
“ Professor Meyer said : ‘Dot Schumann Club, it 
wass my strong right arm.’ ” 

“ The club has new life since you became its 
president,” Katharine added. 

Then the little party said good-night upon 
the Garver threshold. 

For days thereafter Edith Fairfax picked up 
the daily papers with a certain fear and reluc- 
tance, each time expecting to read of the death 
of the poor, doomed violinist. She thought 
often of his eager joy a year before, when 
Frau Meyer and the baby came over from old 
Germany. He was like a boy in his rapture, 
and like a knight in his chivalrous tenderness 
toward the mild-eyed little woman and the child. 

“ Ach,” he had cried, “ only my body haf 
been in America these long months. My heart 
wass back in Mannheim mit Betta. Now you 
will hear me play mit heart and soul.” 


EDITH’S BETTER WAY 


235 


So he had played, giving his talent generously 
to churches and clubs, grateful for the few pupils 
he received and the few chances to earn odd dol- 
lars directing the Bridgeton orchestra when oc- 
casional professional troupes appeared. 

Then came the long illness from which he 
had rallied to find his lungs weak, his pulse un- 
steady, and his purse, alas ! as thin as himself. 

“ Schadet nichts^ Betta,” he would say in those 
days ; “ better times will come,” and plunge 
into work with renewed energy. 

It was a dark day when ruddy old Dr. Flower 
told him the end was near, and his death but 
a question of a few weeks. He had frowned at 
first, the poor violinist, as if he could not under- 
stand, and then had crept off home through the 
gray twilight, to break the news as best he could 
to Betta. To cheer her, to provide for her com- 
fort, and earn her passage back to the poor old 
folks beyond the sea — that became his one 
thought, his constant struggle. 

Then a homely old cornetist in the orchestra, in 
compassion for the weary man struggling against 
such odds, had suggested a benefit concert. 

That over, the professor with the three hun- 
dred dollars all his own, wanted but one thing, 
to die quickly, before the expense of his own 
living had drawn upon the precious possession. 


236 EDITH’S BETTER WAY 

Yet Edith Fairfax looked in vain day after 
day for that death notice. 

Weeks passed, and months, and in the excite- 
ment of the holidays, the skating and sleighing 
seasons, the girl well-nigh forgot Professor 
Meyer and his pitiful condition. Now March 
had come, March with its raw winds and rain. 
Mrs. Fairfax was away, and Edith and Katharine 
held high carnival in her absence, to lessen a 
little the loss of her bright presence in the 
house. 

“ We will practise duets and make candy,” 
said Edith. 

“ And we will wax hilarious over our trigo- 
nometry and civil government,” added Katharine 
with a wry face. 

They were deep in the latter one blustering 
night when Mr. Fairfax came in smiling and 
waving the evening paper above his head. 

“ Read this,” he said, pointing to a dispatch, 
and Edith read excitedly : 

Chicago, March 18. — At the Convention of 
Musical-Literary Clubs, now in progress in this 
city, Mrs. Farley Fairfax, of Bridgeton, was to- 
day elected president of the State organization. 

“ Hurrah for the mamma ! ” cried the girl. 
‘‘ How proud the Schumann Club will be that 


kdith’s better way 


237 


their president, their delegate, has received this 
high honor ! Why, papa, that is something to be 
really proud of, among so many brilliant people, 
so many fine musicians. Oh, oh ! ” and the 
speech ended incoherently as Edith danced de- 
lightedly about the room. 

The Schumann Club was hardly less enthu- 
siastic when at its meeting in the club room next 
day, it sat talking over the action of the conven- 
tion of music lovers in Chicago. 

Mrs. Fairfax was not only the leading spirit 
of the club in Bridgeton, but a member whom 
her fellow-members loved with a very abandon 
of devotion. Pretty, gracious, and daintily re- 
fined, she was at the same time unassuming and 
tactful, a loyal friend, a womanly woman, and a 
bright and energetic executive officer. 

“ We can’t drive her through the streets in a 
chariot of gold,” said Mrs. Eocke, the vice-presi- 
dent, who occupied the chair. 

“ But I know what we can do,” exclaimed an 
animated young person on a front seat. “ W'e 
can give her a beautiful banquet at ‘ The Burn- 
ham,’ and show her that we are sensible of the 
honor she is to us and the town.” 

Instantly a murmur of voices arose that 
drowned the noise of the gavel, until the chair- 
man, giving up the unequal contest, descended 


238 


EDITH’S BETTER WAY 


from the platform and was lost, a magpie among 
magpies. 

How they chattered and planned ! There 
should be covers for fifty — just the musical people 
— roses for decoration — her favorite flower — 
Hamlin’s orchestra, and the “ Burnham ” caterer. 

It was all talked over, and the meeting had 
adjourned, when Edith and Katharine, on their 
way home from school, heard the happy news. 

“ How lovely, lovely, lovely ! ” exclaimed 
Edith, her eyes dancing. “ How pleased mamma 
will be ! But these dreadful hard times — how 
can they do it ? ” 

“ Easily,” came the quick reply. “ The whole 
thing will cost but two hundred dollars, and it 
will be the most willing expense the Schumann 
Club ever met. But Edith, you are passing 
your corner. Good-bye until seven. I’ll be 
over then.” 

Edith stood in a daze. Then she turned with 
a little laugh. In her pleasure and excitement 
she would have forgotten, but for Katharine, her 
errand down this obscure street. 

She had just learned that Professor Meyer 
wished to sell his old music, of which he had 
quantities. 

“Let me see,” she meditated, “I will get 
Gounod’s ‘ Cradle Song,’ for violin and piano, if 


kdith’s better way 


239 


he still has it, that beautiful minuet of Mozart’s 
from the ‘Sixth Grand Symphony,’ and Tartini’s 
‘ I^arghetto,’ ” and hurrying along she presently 
reached the shabby cottage and knocked upon 
its door. 

A faint, “ Herein^'^ answered her. 

Stepping in, she did not at first see the figure 
rising painfully from a couch in the corner. 
Then she gave a great start, for it was the mere 
wreck of a man who stood before her, pale, thin, 
trembling, and gasping for every breath he drew. 

“How do you do?” she stammered, and 
thought how like mockery the old, conventional 
greeting sounded. 

But the man, between his strangling gasps 
for breath, answered her with piteous cheerful- 
ness, “Much better to-day, I t’ank you. Miss 
Edit’. De vife und leetle one iss oudt at market. 
But sit you down ” 

A fit of coughing interrupted him, and he 
sank upon the lounge. When he could speak 
again, it was to thank her for coming to buy the 
music. 

“ I haf very much. If I could sell, it would 
help. Oh, dot iss my terrible grief in de midst 
of so many blessings, dot de money iss going 
und I cannot die.” 

There were tears in the sad eyes, and a flush 


240 


Edith’s better way 


on the thin cheek. “Why do I live? Why do 
I hang on, a burden, an expense, taking de 
bread from de mout’ of my poor Betta? There 
iss now not enough to bury me und sent my 
dear ones home,” and a choking sob ended in 
another fit of coughing. 

Then he said unsteadily : “ Forgif me. I dis- 
tress you. It wass without thought I did it. I 



haf much to t’ank Gott for. De music iss here 
in de chest; we will look it ofer.” 

“ Now you just sit where you are,” said Edith 
firmly. “ I will look over the music,” and she 
bent over the old chest with eyes that were 
blurred with tears. 

Half an hour later she was speeding through 
the twilight to Dr. Flower’s office. 

The doctor sat in his comfortable reception 


EDITH’S BETTER WAY 


241 


room leaning back in his great leathern chair, 
but he straightened with amazement when Edith 
whisked in. 

“ Dr. Flower,” she demanded earnestly, “ are 
doctors ever mistaken? Are you sure of Herr 
Meyer’s case ? Why does he live and live, when 
you gave him up months ago? ” 

“The man has wonderful vitality,” said the 
doctor thoughtfully. 

“ Then how do you know he can’t live after 
all, go on living for years ? ” 

“I don’t know it,” said the doctor briefly. 
“As a matter of fact, if the man had half a 
chance, a change of scene and climate, freedom 
from worry — if he could go to Texas, for in- 
stance, or to Colorado — if he didn’t struggle to 
his feet and try to give lessons when he ought 

to be in bed ” 

“ There might be hope ? ” 

“ Yes ; I really think there might. Most 
amazing vitality — yes.” 

Edith, departing as abruptly as she had come, 
hurried along the streets toward home. “If 
the man had half a chance ” — poor old Herr 
Meyer ! — “ a change of scene and climate, free- 
dom from worry ” The doctor’s words rang 

over and over in her ears and would not be 
silenced, for all the while a new idea was dawn- 
Q 


242 EDITH’S BETTER WAY 

ing in her mind — a way to help, a way to give 
the poor violinist his chance. 

“ But, oh, I cannot do it ! ” she wailed. 
“ Mamma, mamma ! The beautiful banquet, 
the honor, columns in the newspapers, the roses, 
the music and toasts — why, it will be a royal 
tribute, something to remember always, my 
pretty mother. Besides, it isn’t my affair. 
It is their money. They wouldn’t listen to me. 
How would I dare dictate, or even suggest ? ” 

Long the battle raged in the girl’s heart, and 
it was midnight when Katharine was startled in 
her sleep by the rousing words, “ I will do it if 
it scares me to death. You would tell me to, 
mother dearie, if you were here.” 

Edith was sitting bolt upright, a white and 
determined little figure among the soft cover- 
ings. 

“ What’re you doin’ ? ” murmured Katharine 
sleepily. “Tryin’ private theatricals? Chilly 
time, isn’t it ? ” 

Edith, tucking the blankets around her, 
laughed and lay down again to sleep. 

The Schumann Club held a busy meeting 
next day. The buzz of voices was at its highest 
when Edith Fairfax, with face white and hands 
cold, walked in and asked Mrs. Locke if she 
might speak, and then stepped to the platform. 


EDITH’S BETTER WAY 


243 


“Ivadies,” she began uncertainly, “I have 
come here to ask you to do the most beautiful 
thing you can for my mother, something more 
beautiful than even a banquet, with roses and 
music and delicious things to eat, something 
that will honor her more, and be a thing she 
will remember with gladness as long as she 
lives. Instead of spending money for some- 
thing that will be over and gone in a few hours, 
I want to beg you, for her sake, to spend it in 
saving a life, the life of a poor, brave violinist.” 

Then with tone more confident, though it 
trembled with tears, she told of the German 
professor, his pitiful condition, his cheerfulness 
and endurance, his love and sorrow for his wife 
and baby, and the hope Dr. Flower had given 
for his life. 

“ Can we, can we,” she cried, ‘‘ eat and laugh 
and make merry with the money that might 
bring him health and strength and years of life 
and happiness with his good wife and poor little 
baby ? Wouldn’t we feel that we had made her 
a widow and her child an orphan ? Oh, please 
think of it — please ” 

But the girlish voice broke, and the girlish 
figure rushed in confusion from the platform and 
was caught to the motherly heart of good Mrs. 
Docke. 


244 


EDITH’S BETTER WAY 


There was a deal of coughing in the room for 
a minute, and some choking and clearing of 
throats. Perhaps that was why no one heard 
the soft step of a little woman who came for- 
ward from the great hall door and took the cry- 
ing girl in her arms. 

“ My own precious daughter,” the little woman 
said ; but whatever else she said was lost in such 
a flutter of wet-eyed women, and such a chatter 
of happy voices, that it was more like a meeting 
of bluebirds in an April shower than of a body 
of well-regulated club members. 

Nevertheless the flutter and the chatter kept 
on until every old plan of the Schumann Club 
had been killed and forgotten, and the new 
plans rose like Easter lilies, sweet and white, 
and full of the promise of hope and life. 

The most flattering account of the most elab- 
orate banquet ever given could not have been 
read with the joy and pride Mrs. Fairfax and 
Edith found in this small item clipped from a 
June number of the “ Bridgeton Morning 
News ” : 

Our people will be glad to know that Profes- 
sor Meyer, late leader of the Bridgeton orchestra, 
is rapidly regaining his health in the salubrious 
climate of Colorado. He is so improved as to 


EDITH’S BETTER WAY 245 

be able to resume his teaching, and to take long 
walks daily. 

The professor himself, a well and happy man, 
never tires, as the years go on, of telling little 
Franz on his knee the story of Edith Fairfax 
and the Schumann Club, of Bridgeton. 

‘‘And did you pay de monies back, fat’er?” 
the small boy always asks. 

“ With interest, both in dollars and heart’s 
love, mein Liebchen^^'' says the professor, at which 
little Franz chirrups his content and smiles 
happily at his mother smiling in return. 


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